Monday, June 29, 2020

Flying into Denver commercial once, I saw the plane's shadow do exactly this on the cloud deck just below us.


5 comments:

  1. It's called sundog, and it's quite çommon. I used to see them all the time when I was flying my own airplanes.

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  2. This is not a parahelion, or 'sunndog'. This is a glory, a 369* rainbow with your shadow in the center (your eye is is in the optical center).

    Notice the jet shadow appears off center. But the cockpit is in the center. Even more, the focal plane of the camera is in the precise center.

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  3. Happens everyday, while flying over clouds. You just have to see it!

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  4. This is not a parahelion, or a 'sunndog' or a glory, or a 369* rainbow

    It's called a pilots rainbow. It's a 360 degree rainbow with the airplanes shadow in the middle

    It is what the person who saw it calls it. if you say otherwise, you're just talking to the sky.

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  5. A glory is correct. A similar effect is the Brocken spectre. Some interesting history can be found by researching Ben Nevis in Scotland and the invention of the cloud chamber by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson.

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