Neklid Antisolar arcs: Case closed?

In my last post I outlined several possibilities to explain the great brightness of the antisolar arc (AA) compared to the heliac arc (HA) in the Neklid display from Jan 30^th, 2014. All of them were a bit off the main road of traditional halo science, but traditional arguments did not help to clarify what was observed, hence I had to look for something else.

Both the concepts of plate Parry crystals and trigonal Parry columns should yield weak traces of unrealistic (or better to say non-traditional) halos that might appear in a deeper photo analysis. Claudia Hinz provided me with a set of pictures from the display to unleash any kind of filters that would seem appropriate. Indeed it was possible to pin down traces of the Kern arc in some of the pictures after the initial application of an unsharp mask (1, 2), followed by high-pass filtering (1, 2) or, alternatively, by Blue-Red subtraction (1, 2). Note that the Kern arc was weakly present in the simulations for hexagonal, Parry-oriented plates. This, of course, must not be confused with the recently proven Kern arc explanation relying on trigonal plates in plate orientation. Finally, trigonal columns in Parry orientation are a third non-traditional crystal configuration giving rise to new halos. However, these do not yield a Kern arc.

Obviously, the Kern arc fragments in the photos are very feeble and the whole procedure reminds a bit of the search for higher order rainbows. It is mere guesswork to detect how far the arc stretches around the zenith, but doubtlessly it extends up to 90° and more in azimuth, thus being clearly distinguishable form the circumzenith arc. Nonetheless, one would feel safer with further evidence. Comparing the simulations for Parry columns and Parry plates, three more differences are discernible (apart from the changed AA/HA ratio):

1) For Parry plates, the upper suncave Parry arc does not show an uniform brightness, but appears brighter directly above the sun and loses some intensity towards the points where it joins the upper tangent arc.

2) The upper loop of the Tricker anthelic arc is suppressed for columns, but shows up for plates.

3) Some extensions of the upper Tape arcs appear between the Wegener arc and the subhelic arc.

At least the first two points can be answered in favor of the Parry plates, being visible even without strong filtering. However, I failed to detect any extended Tape arcs as “ultimate proof” so far. This might not surprise since they are, according to the simulation, comparable to the Kern arc in intensity and appear in regions of the sky where the crystal homogeneity was not as well developed as in the vicinity of the zenith.

Piecing the parts together, it seems evident that at Neklid the AA intensity was due to Parry-oriented hexagonal plates. Their traces were detectable, whereas nothing appeared that would hint on trigonal Parry columns. In contrast to this, Parry trigonals were responsible in Rovaniemi 2008. This implies that in nature at least two different mechanisms occur for AA brightening.

Finally the question remains how plates may get into a Parry falling mode. But as long as no one understands how symmetric columns do this (though we have the empirical evidence), we should be prepared for surprises. There might also be a connection to recently discussed details of the Lowitz orientation (2013 Light and Color in Nature conference, talk 5.1).

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