11/24: Sun pillar

Late post today!

The line in the sky there isn't a camera or lens problem, and it isn't a mirage, and most importantly it isn't aliens. It's an actual event called a "sun pillar", which happens due to light refraction off ice crystals, when the sun is near the horizon. I've never seen one in person.

Beautiful, UT.

I thought I'd seen all the cool atmospherics: aurora, green flash, "sun dogs", Brockengespenstphanomen... this is the first I've ever even heard of a 'sun pillar' and it is lovely.

Ice crystals in the sky. You'd see that at high latitudes... like when rounding Cape Horn. And the early mariners who went around there had enough superstition and enough actual miserable situations to make anything new and eerie like this quite frightening. It would make a terrific detail in a Patrick O'Brian book.

Re: 11/24: Sun pillar

Quote:

Originally posted by Undertoad Late post today! The line in the sky there isn't a camera or lens problem, and it isn't a mirage, and most importantly it isn't aliens. It's an actual event called a "sun pillar", which happens due to light refraction off ice crystals, when the sun is near the horizon. I've never seen one in person.

That's not Superman. That's Cyclops signaling the rest of the X-Men.

...amateur.

Superiorly,

~Mike