Pyramidal crystal halos

A funny coincidence that a halo-observer may want to experience is travelling to Egypt and seeing some pyramidal crystal halos.

This odd-radius display was photographed by Márk Laczkó of Budapest, Hungary somewhere over the southern borders of Romania. He was sitting on an airplane heading towards Egypt on 27th October. When he realised they were flying in cirrus clouds, he deliberately started looking for some halo phenomena. The surprisingly well distinguishable 18°, 20°, 23° and 24° halos were visible for about a minute at 06:21 UTC. Unfortunately, there is no documentation or report of a possible 35° halo. The original photo and two other pictures are also available (#1 and #2).

Pyramidal halos 8-14-07

After weeks of seeing no nice halo displays I was at work today on breaktime and I saw 22 halo and upper 22 deg tangent arc. I put my sunglasses on and I soon realized I had an odd radius display at hand. In all there was 9 deg. halo 18 deg halo and the outer halo who knows it could be 22 or 23 or a combo of both. The upper arc is convincing it looks sharp and I think it might be 22deg upper column arc but not sure. One photo is an original and the other has USM applied to make the halos stand out better. This is a good odd radius display for me but I know there is a lot better.

Odd radius halo 6-19-07

While at work on break time I noticed there were cirrus clouds in the sky and I decided to check for halos and I got three odd radius halos which were 9, 18 and 22 or 23? degree rings. I took a few photos. I unsharp masked one of them the show the halos more clearly. This was probably the only halo highlight of June but nothing super special but it beats nothing.

Moon pyramidal halo complex in Czech Republic

In June when conditions for observing halos aren’t fine because of low full moon elevation, I have had my best observation ever. On cirrostratus veil divided from cumulonimbus cloud firstly appeared 9° halo and later thick halo at 22-24 area. After stacking 20 pictures, it turned out to be 23° and 24° halo. Fragments of 20° halo were not recognizable until stacking photos. Halos were seen at the highest intensity for about half an hour.

Martin Popek

Odd radius halos at Crete

These odd radii were a little bit surprising, I didn’t expect something like this at Asimenia beach in Kavroz. I had been waiting for any halos for five days and the first display was directly pyramidal 18°, 20° and 23° halos. Fortunately I had a piece of welding glass because photos I took without this protective glass was totally unusable because of reflections. The display originated at very thin cirrus clouds.

Martin Popek

Odd radius halos in Czech Republic

On April 5th 2007 there was typical nice, but, dry“ cirrostratus in the sky without presence of halos. I was continuously checking the sky and after 10:00 I noticed very faint halo that had unusually wide upper part. That was very suspicious to me so I started to take photos which were after processed by Registax. You can see the result in the output picture. There are two separated halos which I later identified through the comparison with night sky, as 20° and 23° halos. Maybe there is also 35° halo, but it cant be certainly identified from the picture. The phenomenon could originate at 0,3-0,0-0,0 or 1,0-0,0-0,0 crystals.

I saw very similar displays with nice, "dry" cirrostratus and then with faint odd radius halos on June 22nd 2006 and August 26th 2006 so that is quite interesting.

Martin Popek