Rainbows and other sky phenomena

Ah brilliant, well explained, Mike. You certainly did think it through. I feel like Marty Mcfly "you're not thinking fourth dimensionally"...Heavy, doc.

Its a brilliant capture now that I got the whole picture and surely one that will be hard to repeat!

Given the forensic analysis on this forum we could do CSI Astronomy...

Ages ago we were talking about rainbows, etc.

This photo is, it's claimed, a 'hailbow' - a rainbow effect created by curtains of hail. I found it on a website that was discussing a recent hail storm so bad it severely damaged the windscreen of an airliner and smashed the nose cone, which protects the weather radar.

This photo is, it’s claimed, a ‘hailbow’

Is this any different to a regular rainbow, I wonder? Surely, it's formed by the same process (sunlight interacting with a spherical raindrop), and forms in the same part of the sky (42° from the antisolar point)?

Unless I'm missing something here?

If it's formed by ice crystals, then it would be a halo (22° from the Sun).

It's not clear from the picture whether this is a rainbow or a halo... though can I see crepuscular rays on the right hand side? If this is the case, then this is definitely a 22° solar halo.

Nope, don't reckon it's fundamentally different at all. I think that it was just unusual to see a rainbow made by a curtain of chunks of ice rather than a fine mist of rain.

Ever heard of a circumzenithal? Also known as a Bravais? What about an upside-down rainbow?

Ever heard of a circumzenithal? Also known as a Bravais? What about an upside-down rainbow?

Nice spot. They're relatively common, by all accounts, but I'm racking my brains to remember if I've ever seen one.

The, related, circumhorizontal arc is something we will rarely see in this country, as we're too far north. It can only be seen more commonly at latitudes of less than 50-degrees from the equator. See here for some graphs on how many days per year it may be seen from different geographical locations.

These arcs appear below the Sun, 46-degrees minimum deviation, so the Sun has to be very high... 58-degrees minimum. The arc is always parallel to the horizon. Never seen one from the UK.

Seems to have been a spate of double rainbows over the south-east of England today, judging by the photos I'm seeing on Twitter.

Not to be outdone, after a particularly sharp shower, I popped out into the garden to take this:

Double rainbow over Blackheath by Mike Meynell, on Flickr

The double rainbow only lasted about 2-3 minutes, but it was quite bright at one stage.

Upside down rainbows.

And now, fog bows!

Rainbows and gold.

I use the Deep Sky RGB set with an L2 and dont have any issues with colour balance at least, that arent of my own making

My previous set had OIII falling predominantly in the green filter and that just didnt look right...not an issue with the Deep Sky RGB