Lmst

Some of the most intense and vivid light pillars I've seen on the south side of Fairbanks tonight! I took a few more photos: https://photos.lwpetersen.com/Recent-Photos

#alaska #lightpillar #atmosphericoptics #fairbanks #nightsky

Nighttime winter scene in Fairbanks, Alaska. A snow-covered road with deep tire tracks runs straight into the distance. Beyond the road, bright city lights create numerous tall, vertical light pillars rising into the dark sky. The pillars vary in brightness and height, forming pale white and bluish columns above the horizon beneath a low cloud layer.

Light pillars above an industrial area in Fairbanks, Alaska at night. A long, low industrial building sits in the foreground behind a chain-link fence, surrounded by snow. Numerous vertical light pillars rise from bright lights around the buildings, forming white and faintly colored columns against a dark blue sky. A single brighter pillar stands out on the left side of the frame.

A winter night scene showing tall, narrow light pillars rising above a dark treeline in Fairbanks, Alaska. The pillars are evenly spaced and pale white, stretching upward into a cloudy sky. In the foreground, power lines and a utility pole cut diagonally across the frame, with frozen grasses and low shrubs visible at ground level.

Vertical light pillars above a snowy landscape in Fairbanks, Alaska at night. A bright orange light source near the ground produces a vivid orange pillar extending upward, surrounded by multiple white and bluish pillars from nearby lights. Leafless shrubs and small trees appear in silhouette in the foreground, with snowbanks and a low ridge separating the viewer from the lights.

Just eight days ago, I gave a popular science talk at @mpi_grav about colorful phenomena in the sky, and now – boom!

Just minutes ago, there were beautiful iridescent clouds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_iridescence) here, north of Hanover, Germany.

Here, light is diffracted by tiny droplets in the clouds, creating these typical mother-of-pearl colors.

#Light #Physics #Photography #NaturePhotography #Diffraction #AtmosphericOptics

Thin clouds in a pale blue sky. The edges of the clouds shimmer in mother-of-pearl colors.

Yesterday morning felt like one of those quiet bets you make with nature. The night had frozen everything solid, so I suspected there might be low-hanging fog waiting somewhere between the fields and the treelines. As I walked in, part of me was afraid I had already “mist” it — but as the sun crept closer to the horizon, the air began to thicken, soft and silver, like the world taking a slow breath.

Just before sunrise, something unexpected happened. High above the forming fog, an ice cloud lit up in iridescent colours — mostly red, orange, and yellow, with subtle hints of green and blue. Ice crystals at high altitude can refract sunlight much like tiny prisms, creating these fleeting rainbow glows known as irisation. It felt like a quiet scientific miracle happening in real time.

That’s when I saw the leafless tree. Stark, skeletal, patient. And suddenly the composition clicked: a tree seemingly losing its last colours into the sky, like a gentle puff of smoke drifting upward. It’s not my most dramatic image, but there was something special in its simplicity — a moment where winter, light, physics, and imagination lined up just long enough to press the shutter.

Photography, after all, is just another way of studying light and life.

#wonderinglens #ByMaikeldeBakker #NaturePhotography #LandscapeLovers #MorningMist #IceCloud #Iridescence #AtmosphericOptics #WeatherPhenomena #TreeSilhouette #WinterLight #DutchNature #LowlandsMagic #SunriseGlow #ColorInTheSky #FoggyMorning #PhysicsInNature #ScientificStorytelling #CanonPhotography #OutdoorLife #NatureStory #MagicalRealismInNature #NaturalWonder #SkyWatcher #EarthObservations #LightPlay #WanderingWithACamera #DailyExploration #MomentOfCalm #VisualPoetry #CreativeVision #PhotographersLife #ArtOfSeeing #NatureMood #WinterVibes #FieldNotes #MindfulPhotography #NatureIsArt #ChasingLight #StoryThroughLens

There is currently a halo (22° halo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22%C2%B0_halo) around the moon.

The ring is created by moonlight refracted by hexagonal, non-oriented ice crystals. These ice prisms are found in high-altitude clouds (cirrus clouds). This type of halo is quite common. Its radius is 22°, which is about 44 full moon diameters.

#Halo #AtmosphericOptics #Moon #Physics #Refraction #Cirrus #Photography

Photo of the night sky, with trees and houses in the foreground. In the center of the image is the overexposed moon, surrounded by a large ring that is slightly colored.

Regenbogenfragment bei tiefem Sonnenstand heute früh 10 min nach Sonnenaufgang. Der Regen zog in der Entfernung schnell durch, das Regenbogenstück war nur wenige Minuten lang zu sehen

#Regenbogen #AtmosphärischeOptik #AtmosphericOptics #Wetter #Hannover #Wedemark

Fotos eines Stück eines Regenbogens über einem Parkplatz. Der linke Fußteil des Bogens ist zu sehen, er steigt sehr steil auf.

That was a really bright rainbow just before sunset when a heavy shower passed over Wedemark.

#Rainbow #Hannover #Wedemark #AtmosphericOptics #Sunset #Nature #Photography

Right side of a very bright rainbow. The primary and secondary are clearly visible.

Middle part of a very bright rainbow. The primary and secondary are clearly visible.

Left side of a very bright rainbow. The primary and secondary are clearly visible.

Fata morgana visible today, from Willows Beach in #OakBay, #VictoriaBC. Cold air under warm creates a duct where there are multiple paths that light from an object can follow to your eye. The different paths result in multiple images of the same thing. In the image of the ship, it's heat haze, small pockets of convection mixing the cold and warm air, that result in a smearing of the image. It's very painterly.

#AtmosphericOptics #mirage

A distant shoreline, seen across water, looks like it is jumbled vertically with objects copied upside down above themselves, perhaps more than once.

A crop of the previous image showing a shoreline house with columns that has clearly got an upside down set of the columns stacked above it. Some birds, one flying in the mid ground, are more distinct. They are not as far away or the cold layer of air is below them.

A ship in the distance that is fuzzy, all details indistinct, as though someone has swiped a brush through paint.

La Lune ne change pas, c’est l’air qui joue des tours à sa lumière. Horizon bas, poussières : bonjour reflets rouges.
https://www.presse-citron.net/pourquoi-lumiere-lune-change-couleur/
#Space #Science #Astrophysics #MoonColors #RayleighScattering #AtmosphericOptics #RedMoon

📸 The Veins of Heaven
A stunning display of noctilucent clouds over Vallentuna Lake, Sweden, captured on July 10. These night-shining clouds form 80 km above Earth and glow in twilight by reflecting sunlight from beyond the horizon.

📅 APOD – July 11, 2025
📷 Credit: P-M Hedén (Clear Skies, TWAN)

#APOD #NoctilucentClouds #NightShiningClouds #PolarMesosphericClouds #UpperAtmosphere #TwilightSky #AtmosphericOptics #NaturePhotography #Astrophotography #StellarSnap

A vivid display of noctilucent clouds stretches across the twilight sky, glowing with silvery-blue hues. Below, the still waters of Vallentuna Lake in Sweden reflect the shimmering clouds, doubling the ethereal scene. The horizon is dark, with hints of orange from the setting sun, while wispy, high-altitude ice clouds appear illuminated against the deepening sky. Trees frame the edges of the lake, adding a sense of scale and calm to this atmospheric spectacle.

Two different sets of #IridescentVapourTrails captured from Oxfordshire, UK 15 June '25 The colours are created when sunlight is diffracted by tiny water droplets that condense out over the aircraft wings. Canon 1100D + 300mm zoom lens #AtmosphericOptics #Aviation #Diffraction

As the almost #FullMoon rose on 11th June 2025, it created the tallest #MoonPillar I've ever seen, extending about 30 degrees up! Photographed from North Oxfordshire with a Canon 1100D + Sigma 300mm lens #AtmosphericOptics

Currently doing battle with a truculent million year old baby protostar below the belt of Orion, moving behind clouds some eighty million au away 😬

As a brief distraction, here’s a several billion year old grown-up star just one au away, playing with the water and ice in the atmosphere of one of its planets 🌞

#SpaceScience ✨
#AtmosphericOptics 🌈
#CloudAppreciationSociety 🌥️

The sun shining partly through a cloud with cirrus in the blue sky around. There is a 22 degree halo encircling the sun.

Suburban Rainbow

#strathearn #photography #scotland #rainbow #atmosphericoptics #drone

A 54km ride this evening, half of which was along a new route 🙂

Which my ELEMNT recorded & which shows in my weekly ride total, but the ride itself has disappeared from the gizmo & did not sync to my phone or to Strava. Will have to add it manually 🙄

Only little spits of rain during the ride, but as this 22° halo & outer elliptical circumscribed halo from earlier in the day show, the weather is a changin’ 🌧️

#CyclingLife 🚴‍♂️
#Photography 📷
#AtmosphericOptics 🌈

A picture of the Sun seen through high cirrus clouds. There is a circular 22° halo around the Sun with hints of red and other colours at the inner edge. Then there is an elliptical halo that is tangent to the 22° halo at the top and bottom, but extends outwards at the sides. As the halo is continuous, the Sun must have been above 29° altitude: below that, you get separate upper and lower tangent arcs.

One additional image of the rising Moon with a pine pollen corona. It was quite easy to see with the unaided eye.

This was taken on May 12 at 22:26 CEST north of Hanover, Germany.

3.2 seconds exposed at f/6.3, ISO 640 and f=200 mm.

#AtmosphericOptics #Photography #Light #Diffraction #Physics #Pollen #Moon

Photo of the Moon near the horizon (dark with a tree line and a cell site). The Moon is surrounded by a yellowish aureole and two colorful, elliptical rings with brighter spots at the top, bottom, and the left and right.

Did you know that you can observe fascinating #mirages in the Black Forest? In my latest blog post, I explore this phenomenon of #AtmosphericOptics and share my personal observations from the coast of the English Channel and the mountains of the Black Forest.

https://www.silberspur.de/blogs/read/108

#NaturePhenomena #EnglishChannel #BlackForest #ScienceBlog #NaturePhotography #Photography #FataMorgana #Physics #meteorology #Schwarzwald #Fotografie #NaturFotografie #Luftspiegelungen

A coastal scene at low tide illuminated by the light of the low-hanging sun, which is visible in the frame. The beach is dotted with puddles that reflect the sunlight, creating a shimmering effect. Silhouettes of several people stand at the shore, gazing out at the sea. On the horizon, the outlines of three ships are visible, their shapes vertically mirrored by the phenomenon of mirage, enhancing the serene beauty of the scene.

Tree sex makes colored rings in the sky – Yesterday, I observed pollen coronas around the sun and the moon.

These colorful rings appear around the sun / the moon when airborne pollen diffracts the light (=deflects it depending on its color).

Different pollen types make different coronas. Here, it is likely pine pollen.

pic 1 at 14:08 CEST, f=200 mm, sun covered by street lamp.

pic 2 at 22:27 CEST, f=200 mm, moon overexposed

#AtmosphericOptics #Photography #Light #Diffraction #Physics

Colored rings around the sun, which is occulted by a street lamp. In the backlight, many flying pollen grains can be seen as small white spots.

Colored rings around the moon. The rings have darker and lighter areas. The dark areas are symmetrical on the left and right, top and bottom of the ring.

If you expose the image more (here the same conditions as before, but t=1.3 seconds), you can see the typical multiple diffraction rings.

#AtmosphericOptics #Photography #Nature #Light #Diffraction #Moon

A reddish-brown halo surrounds the overexposed bright moon, surrounded by two rainbow-colored rings. The outmost one is very faint. The rings have brighter knots at the top, bottom, left, and right.

Very nice pollen based atmospheric optics.

Last night I observed a pollen corona around the bright moon. These colored rings around the moon are created when its light is refracted by airborne pollen.

Depending on the type of pollen, different ring shapes and sizes appear. This one is probably from pine pollen.

Image: 22:53 CEST | f=300 mm | aperture 5.6 | ISO 1250 | 0.5 s

#AtmosphericOptics #Photography #Nature #Light #Diffraction #Moon

A reddish-brown halo surrounds the overexposed bright moon, surrounded by a rainbow-colored ring. The ring has brighter nodes at the top, bottom, left, and right.

I spotted a very clear 22º halo today. This is caused by hexagonal cylinders of ice, tiny crystals, suspended with their long axis roughly perpendicular to the rays from the sun. Refraction splits sunlight into colours and diffraction forms the ring. There's also the suggestion of the circumscribed halo. This #halo is oval, centred on the sun, and meets the 22º halo above and below the sun.

#AtmosphericOptics #22DegreeHalo #UVic #VictoriaBC

#AtmosphericOptics

Client Info