Concave & convex Parry arcs photographed in Georgia

A visitor of my homepage emiled me this photo of a complex display that took place in Rome, Georgia and the year I can't remember but it was in the early 90's and of all the halos the bright upper concave and convex parry arcs are the most interesting. This is probably the best I have seen where both upper parry arcs are visible . Other images show a bright supralateral arc as well. The person who sent the photo is Loren Hall and his email is: bctimebandit@earthlink.com

Anthelic arcs in Finland

On August 28th anthelic arcs appeared in the northern part of Finland. My coffee break was suddenly halted as watching from the window I noticed several arcs. Once outside my eye was first caught by well developed parhelic circle. Then, looking up I noticed a colourful Wegener arc. Colours were red on the bottom and blue on the upper part. In the later stage of the display I noticed faint X at the anthelion indicative of the diffuse/Tricker arcs. I had no camera but my friend borrowed his camera equipped cellphone. Image quality is quite poor, but halos are still recognizable. Also Parry arc and 120 parhelia were present. Other halos were 22halo, parhelia, 22 upper tangent arc, parhelic circle, circumzenith arc, infralateral arc and supralateral arc. The display was noticed over large areas in Finland. More photos is here. Also see the photos by Arto Oksanen and Panu Lahtinen

46° halo in Czech Republic

The April 21st 2007 was undoubtely one of the best halo days in this year. Observers from all over the Czech Republic enjoyed very bright 22° halo with tangent arcs and infralateral arcs.

We probably observed Wegener arcs and 120° parhelia, but this cannot be proven, because even fotos from Registax didn’t help us to clearly identify them. Anyway, Martin Popek saw that day very nice 46° halo and he took these pictures which were stacked from 40 images in Registax.

As the Sun was setting down, more halos appeared. In the second picture you can see parhelion with a part of parhelic circle (parhelic tail), 22° halo, circumzenithal arc and probably supralateral arc.

Edit: It isn’t supralateral arc in the second photo, but 46° halo because there is no upper tangent arc. That signifies absence of horizontal oriented columns, which are necessary in order to make supralateral arc.

Mid-elevation halo display with column crystals in control

Throughout my work day there were a number of halos that were coming and going. Around midday there was 22d halo, circumscribed halo, parhelic circle, and parhelia. Later on at break time I got 22 and circumscribed halos and there was a nice infralateral arc on the left and a possible lower suncave parry arc not sure on that need help to identify short piece of arc to the left of 22d halo. Before I left work I imaged an upper suncave parry arc. The final stage had nice upper tangent arc and a complete supralateral arc.

Lunar Diamond Dust Display in Pälkäne, Finland

In the evening of 4 November this lunar display graced the sky soon after sunset. Among the halo forms observed are the rare heliac arc, Tape arcs and Moilanen arc. The Moon elevation is ca. 16°.

In the image the entire length of the heliac arc is visible as a beautiful loop encircling the zenith. The Moilanen arc is very intensive and appears to extend beyond the 22 degree halo. Tape arcs can be seen as diffuse brightenings on the supralateral arc.

In the beams of the passing cars a bright pillar, parhelia, upper tangent arc and Moilanen arc were clearly visible. These proved difficult to photograph though. At the local ski resort the snow guns were operating during the display and the crystal swarm was a by-product of this activity. The temperature was below -15 °C.

Parry sunvex and suncave arcs

On October 28 in Czech Republic I and Lukas Kosarek observed Parry arcs. I saw sunvex arc too (you see title photo) and Lukas take photos of Suncave arc. We saw a nice supralateral arc also.