Sunday, July 01, 2012

Crepuscular and Anticrepuscular Rays



Think I've explained this one before but you don't get to see this phenomenon often. The top picture is of the sun setting in the south-west. You can see that the clouds are blocking some of the sun's light causing a "ray" effect. They are called crepuscular rays. If conditions are perfect you can see the rays appear to converge at the anti-solar point. So I turned 180 degrees from taking the picture of the setting sun to face the north-east. Sure enough - there they were. (The rays don't actually come back together again - it's an illusion similar to looking down railroad tracks that seem to converge in the distance.) These are called anticrepuscular rays and aren't as bright as crepuscular rays because of light scattering. Hopefully you can make them out in the bottom picture forming dark stripes across the pinkish Belt of Venus. Just some fun stuff you can look for when you are outside and not on your computer.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Pretty neat! Never noticed it before.

Rebecca