Ice Halo

 

This ice halo, encircling the sun, was observed yesterday while I was walking in St-Laurent looking for migratory birds.

Just a quick note on how ice halos come to be:

Ice halos are caused by both refraction, or splitting of light, and also reflection, or glints of light from ice crystals typically suspended in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.  The crystals have to be oriented and positioned just so, in order for the halo to appear.  They can appear around the sun or the moon.

Here is another photo of this atmospheric phenomenon:

Ice halo

If you recall, back in November I had a post about supernumerary rainbows and iridescent clouds. Well, on Christmas day I witnessed another interesting atmospheric phenomenon - the ice halo!

Thanks to the keen eyes of my friend Jean, it was brought to my attention that there was a "rainbow" around the sun. I only had my pocket camera with me but managed to take these shots. You can read about ice halos here.

I find the wispy clouds add to the "other worldly" aspect of the scene.