Horizontal Rainbow

Montreal, QC - EvilGentleman - Sunday, May 20th, 2007 : goo

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I was at McDonald's having lunch with my friend Johnny, when he noticed this rare horizontal rainbow in the sky above us. It was what is known as a circumhorizontal arc, a phenomenon related to refraction and the alignment of the ice crystals in upper-level cirrus cluds. When first observed, it was about 30 degrees wide, but I did not have my camera at the time. About 30 minutes later, I got my camera, and was able to take these shots of the end of it.

The shots above are modified to maximize both the colour and to show the extent of the phenomenon, and is the closest representation of what my eyes saw that I could reproduce. Below are the original shots, as seen through the lens of my camera. I rarely modify my photos in this way, but all I have done is tweak the brightness and contrast, nothing else.

The pictures were taken around 1 PM today in Dorval.
maps.google.ca/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&q=&ll=45.448902,-73.75386&spn=0.007331,0.014462&t=k&z=16&om=1

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