Unusual Elliptical Halos May 8th 2022 in Japan

On May 8, strange elliptical halos were captured by Pipibun in Kunimi, Fukushima prefecture, Japan.

At 14:30 that day, there were cirrus and cirrostratus clouds in the sky, and some frequent halo forms appeared. After taking pictures for a while, the observer moved about 20 km to the north. 

At about 16:10, looking at the sky again, altocumulus clouds over the sun and the double elliptical halos appeared above it. The display lasted for 20 minutes. With the sun 23-26° high, major axis of outer ring was about 10° and minor one was 5°. 

The shapes of the elliptical halos are varied and are thought to be affected by apex angle of the flat pyramidal crystals (or possibly dendritic snow-type crystals.) Additionally, they are known to become sometimes multiple and inner rings are basically similar ellipsoid. Therefore, were there at least two different gradient responsible crystal groups in that sky?

Winter Solstice elliptical halo

I was outside working on the day of the Winter Solstice and saw AC clouds coming in and I anticipated elliptical halo and got my camera gear ready. Not too long afterward I saw ice crystals precipitating out the AC and using a telephone pole as a sun block got a small elliptical halo. It came and went twice. This I believe is my 2nd elliptical halo for the 2019 year.

Elliptical halo March 17th First one of the season

Elliptical halo today. First one of the 2019 halo season. I saw a gap in the AC clouds and I got into position and it formed out of crystals precipitating from the AC clouds. I hope to get some more good stuff like this. I got a week pyramidal display a while back.

Elliptical Halo, Lapinjärvi, Finland 23rd January 2018

Following hard on the heels of Michael Ellestad's recent elliptical halo sighting, we have this little gem observed by Mirko Lahtinen in Lapinjärvi, Finland on the 23rd January 2018. Mirko says the halo appeared at about 11.31am in a kind of low level haze and lasted for about ten minutes in total. Ambient temperature at the time about -15°C and images taken on a Motorola MotoG3.

All images copyright Mirko Lahtinen.

Elliptical Halo January 25th 2018

Following my recent observation of subparhelia and sub-PHC on the car windshield earlier in the week, yesterday I had another great catch. Whenever I see altocumulus clouds the first thing that comes to mind are elliptical halos. A large patch of blue sky appeared and looking up, sure enough there was an elliptical halo! I brought the camera and I took a bunch of shots of the halo some of which I present here. I have a feeling the 2018 halo and sky optics season is going to be a good one.

Elliptical Halo in Vecsés, Hungary

Today on 21st October at 11:27 local time I saw this elliptical halo above Vecsés, Hungary. I was photographing Ac len and iridescent Ac clouds, when I caught sight of the display. The elliptical halo formed on the ice crystal precipitation of one of the Ac. The display lasted less than two minutes, so I really had to hurry to find a good object to shield the Sun with, and not to miss the sight meanwhile. In the first photo - I was still using the neighbouring house's wall, - even the reddish inner side of the halo can be seen. More photos.

 

Original post in Halo reports

Elliptical halos over Deventer

14 August 2007 - At the edge of a large, smooth-structured Altocumulus bank, elliptical halos appeared at 1100, and from 1113 to 1120 UTC. In the first stage, the halo was complete and quite bright, although hardly coloured. It remained too short to get the camera ready. In the second stage, the halo was quite bright as well, and uncoloured, and sometimes partly covered by the continuously passing-over Altocumulus edge. Several photographs were able to be made (Nikon D80, AF-S Nikkor justed on 45mm). At 1113 UTC there were sections of two different elliptic halos visible. The inner remainded visible and was complete, even shining through the Altocumulus. The Altocumulus became increasingly dense and halos disappeared at 1120 UTC. Solar elevations from 51.7 to 51.9degs.

Peter-Paul Hattinga Verschure, Deventer The Netherlands

Bottlinger's Rings from airplane

To help overcome our dearth of halos, here is another archive picture. It was taken in the morning over Iberian Peninsula in April 1997 by Frank Wächter using a 35mm lens. It shows elliptical haloes around the subsun called Bottlinger's rings.

Elliptic halos over Deventer

Predominantly incomplete but brightly coloured elliptical halos over Deventer, the Netherlands on Sunday 23/4. The display occurred in two stages, the first performing one elliptic halo section (vertical radius app. 5degs) from 1030-1037 UT, the second from 1048 to 1100 UT, during some minutes including a fainter and smaller but complete inner elliptic halo (vertical radius app. 3degs). By the time shape was somewhat varying. Most striking was the coloration, with dominating red to orange but also yellow and blue outside. Sun elevations were 48.3degs at 1030, and 49.6degs at 1055UT.

Elliptical halo in Helsinki

Elliptical halo appeared in the skies today on 26. March 2006. This was one of those rare long lasting displays, with almost an hour duration. The image here shows some of the stacked photos of the display. All together I took more than 600 shots.

The formation of elliptical halos is still somewhat mysterious. While good simulations are produced by obtuse hexagonal pyramid crystals having pyramid apex angles of around 175°, the current knowledge of ice physics does not give much support for such a crystal.

The display was formed - as usual - in Altocumulus virga. More on the cloud associations here.

By Marko Riikonen

Latest halo displays from Finland

During the last days series of reasonable displays developed over Southern Finland. Three of them were in moonlight and one in sunlight. Elliptical halo, 9° and 18° halos and Parry arc were observed. See photos and drawings here.

The picture on the left shows the halo development in Tampere on the night of 14/15 March. Among common halos, faint 9° halo and Parry arc are also present.

By Marko Riikonen

Elliptical halo in Diamond Dust

At 13.03.2006 accumulate a diamond dust on the 1835m high top of the German mount Wendelstein above a 1400m high cloud layer, which consists of tiny little snowstars and very long ice columns.
Therein forms out a bright glittering lower sun pillar with subsun. After a half an hour both halo kinds weaken clearly, but in return there accumulate two elliptical rings around the sun, before the whole halo spook was disappeared. The diamond dust was in the air all over the day, but no halos were observably anymore.

By Claudia Hinz

Elliptical halo in Finland

This years first elliptical halo was seen on 4. February by Mika Aho in Muurame. The picture here shows fuzzy upper part of the ellipse on the edge of Altocumulus cloud.

Elliptical halos occur very close to the glare of sun and thus are not seen by accident – one has to look for them. They are often also short in duration. Appearances lasting less than a minute are not uncommon.

Because of closeness of the sun, dark glasses helps spotting elliptical halos. It also helps to know some clouds, since elliptical halos are usually formed in vicinity of Altocumulus. These clouds are made of supercooled water droplets at around -15° C but sometimes they precipitate ice crystals. It is in this icy virga that elliptical halos are observed (the white thin cloud in Aho photo). Mostly, though, Altoclumulus virga produces no elliptical halos. Certain level of dedicated sky watching helps to succeed in seeing them.

See more photos of the display and another ellipse last summer by Aho.

US Elliptical halo observations 2005

Here's my elliptical halos I got for 2005 . The first one was Feb 15th 2005 and the second Dec 17th 2005 .