Date:         Mon, 30 Jul 2001 06:18:44 -0400
Reply-To:     Maryland Birds & Birding <MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
Sender:       Maryland Birds & Birding <MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
From:         "Magnusson, Nancy C." <Nancy.Magnusson@JHUAPL.EDU>
Subject:      Saturday's Bombay Hook sky show
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi, everyone -
This is slightly off-topic, but may be of interest.  Those of us who
happened to be at Bombay Hook on Saturday were treated to some wonderful sky
effects thanks to the cirrus clouds pushing ahead of the front.  About 8 AM
in addition to 2 sun dogs, a circumzenithal arc appeared high in the sky -
this was a first for me.  Around noon and again at 1:15 PM we saw portions
of circumhorizontal arcs.  Truly beautiful.  Thanks to John Bjerke for
stopping the car caravan so we could get out and admire the sky.  And thanks
to the winds for blowing the clouds into fortuitous positions.

For anyone interested in such effects, I recommend Robert Greenler's book
"Rainbows, Halos, and Glories" - it is somewhat technical, but fascinating.
Below are a few photo links to the 3 phenomena.

Sundogs (Parhelia - a much better term to search on!)
http://www.meteoros.de/englisch/ee02e.htm
http://home.pf.jcu.cz/~gembem00/obrhtm/parhelia01.htm

http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~scu/pretties.html - arc link shows both types

drawing of some sky effects and where they are in relation to the sun:
http://pls.atu.edu/physci/physics/people/psjr/courses/PHSC3033/AtmOptics/sld
041.htm

Circumhorizontal arc:
http://www.meteoros.de/ee21ee24/ee23_b.htm

Eyes to the sky!
Nancy Magnusson
Howard County, MD

=======================================================================
To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com
with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey
=======================================================================
=========================================================================