Tuesday 20 October 2009

4th Elliptical halo!! Yeah baby woot woot woot!!!

While staying with relatives down in Bedford Indiana, one morning before we left to French Lick Casino I saw a large field of AC clouds slowly moving out of the area and I know AC clouds means elliptical halos. I looked up and saw the trailing edge of the clouds nearing the sun and I noticed they were forming virga sheets and as it drew nearer I took the gamble to watch. As the sun came into view I saw a diffuse sunpillar form and it later on got more defined and I watched as a small crescent of light formed in the pillar and it coalesed into an elliptical halo! Throughout the duration I could only see one ellipse and it was quite bright and well defined. I only need two more to tie Mika Sillanpaa's record. Look out Mika I need two more observations to tie your record and who knows I could beat it. I will gamble with halos not at slot machines at least I won't loose money with halos. ( 1 ).

Text: Michael Ellestad

5 comments:

  1. Michael, you are in top shape. Next time you see ellipses, try to take also photos with wider angle so that the overall cloud situation in the sky becomes evident.

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  2. I may do that next time I did once during the big elliptic halo display back in 2008.

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  3. Michael - fantastic catch again! And I agree with Marko - I also want to see this phenomenon with a wider angle.

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  4. One more question Michael, how long this one lasted?

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  5. Jakub,

    Yes a wonderful catch indeed and if you think that was nice the day before yesterday I got large halo complex that had bright parry, nice 46infra, bright 120d parhelia, and the best of all WEGENER ARC!!! I will try to do wide angle when ellipse appears again.

    @ Marko,

    The halo lasted for a little over 5 minutes.

    Just need two more observations to tie Mika's record

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