The Glory

DMC-FX100

ƒ/13

11.9 mm

1/200

Finally caught one on the flight into Utah. The “Glory” (or Buddha’s light 佛光) is produced by the backscattering of sunlight off uniformly-sized water droplets. The angular size of the ring is much smaller than a rainbow, and varies with the size of the droplets.

Since childhood, I imagined that a rainbow would be a complete circle if the Earth’s horizon did not get in the way. I first saw a double rainbow circle example by helicopter, but could not capture it all in frame.

The plane’s shadow reminds us that the sun has to be directly behind the observer for the double-bounce within each watery sphere to align across the spectrum.

6 responses to “The Glory”

msamaclean ©

Dec 19, 2007 at 5:48 am

This is well captured!
Another part of a full circle, ……with the sun in the middle of it all, in appearance, anyway……….plus vortices of the con trail.

Reply
!MimosaMicheMichelle!

Dec 19, 2007 at 6:14 am

Great catch! Only from the air could you see this, I imagine.

Melanie, I think your photo is also of a sun halo. Here is a photo I commented on 26 months ago, alos my links about sun halos

Crown of Creation

Follow instructions after link

Sun halos, guide(Gh)/guides/mtr/opt/ice/halo/22.rxml

Sundogs and sun halos

Reply
avlxyz

Dec 21, 2007 at 12:50 am

Good shot!
It’s even more amazing when u see it surround a humanoid shadow in a mountain 🙂
Wikipedia has some nice examples too: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(optical_phenomenon)

Reply
jcgr

Jan 26, 2008 at 8:04 pm

Beautiful.

Reply
Pink Pepper Photo

Aug 7, 2008 at 12:56 pm

Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Sundogs, halos,sun pilars,atmospheric optics……..PLEASE READ, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

best site on the web for atmospheric optic info in my opinion

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/notabow.htm

Reply
jurvetson

Jan 4, 2012 at 11:48 pm

I was pleased to see this image used to illustrate the glory phenomena in the January 2012 issue of Scientific American:

"The light energy beamed back by a glory originates mostly from wave tunneling, which is when light rays that missed a droplet can still transfer energy into it."

Otherwise, the angle of refraction would be off by 14° from a perfect 180° reflection back to the observer. The author has been trying to explain the glory phenomenon since 1965!

Reply

The Glory

6 responses to “The Glory”

Leave a Reply to msamaclean © Cancel reply