Iridescent Clouds

On May 17th I observed iridescent clouds as I was out looking for wildlife to photograph.  It was towards the end of the day and it added some excitement to my outing.  I have seen this phenomenon before but only in the winter.  

You can check here for a brief explanation of how this effect is produced:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_iridescence

The photographs were darkened using exposure settings and minimally saturated to bring out the colours.

Supernumerary rainbows and iridescent clouds

It's interesting how one thing leads to another and before you know it, a mystery is solved. Last night on the way home from work I saw a spectacular rainbow and as I studied it I noticed narrow bands on the inside of the arc. I checked the Internet and found out that this was a supernumerary rainbow!

Then, as I was perusing the website I clicked on iridescent clouds and this solved a mystery regarding a picture I took in March of 2006 in the Montreal Botanical Gardens.

On that day I had the camera pointed up towards a Goldfinch in a tree when I noticed the strange colouring of some clouds. It was unlike anything I had seen and so I photographed it but never researched it any further. Here is the photograph with reduced brightness to show the colours better. The colours themselves have not been enhanced.