Sundog / Parhelia
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Sundog / Parhelia by Hywel Williams as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Sundog / Parhelia
Image: © Hywel Williams Taken: 19 Oct 2002
A phenomenon seen when fine ice crystals in the upper atmosphere refracts the sun's rays. A halo (parhelic circle) forms at 22º around the sun when it's close to the horizon on crisp evenings (just visible in this photograph) and two "mock suns" appear on either side of the sun at 90º and 270º, often being seen as two tiny rainbows. The sun in this picture is way overexposed causing it to seem bloated (and actually damaged the camera's CCD while taking this picture!)
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.795418
Longitude
-3.965676