Kern and Hastings arcs make appearance in the UK

Only three days before the low-sun odd radius display ( http://thehalovault.blogspot.com/2020/06/odd-radius-display-at-low-sun-in.html ), I observed a brief but intense display that included well-defined suncave Parry arc as the visual highlight. Shown above are the two 50-frame stacks that I managed to extract out of the display. Both cover five minutes and they are separated by another five-minute interval during which I was too busy to collect data. Solar elevation is 26° in the first (top panels) and 25° in the second (bottom).

Applying the usual background-subtraction on the average stacks (on the left) makes helic, Tape, and Lowitz arcs all stand out reasonably well in addition to the circumzenithal, supralateral, upper tangent, and Parry arcs. As the simulation (HaloPoint 2.0) in the top right-hand-side corner demonstrates, the anthelic arc close to the far left edge is Hastings rather than Wegener. Kern arc only appears in the second stack, coming out the clearest in the middle panel. Here, blue-minus-red colour subtraction is applied on top of the background subtraction. The bottom right corner is the average 50-frame stack without further processing.

Complex Halo Display, Borlänge, Sweden

On the 14th December 2018 at 12.30 UTC, Magnus Edbäck photographed an amazingly complex display in his home village of Utendal near Borlänge, Sweden comprising many extremely rare halos with at least one completely new halo form, a multiple scattering halo. Highlights include 46° contact arc, Hastings arc, extremely long Schulthess arcs and the rarely seen in daylight Ounasvaara arc. Like Marko Riikonen's 6th March 2017 Rovaniemi display, this one will go down in the annals of halo history and no doubt will be discussed and analysed for a long time to come. The two faint patches of light on either side of the 22° tangent arc are the new multiple scattering halo which at the time of writing has not been given a name. It is quite possible that the display was caused by snow guns in operation at the Romme Alpin ski centre situated about 12km away from Utendal.

Magnus has very kindly agreed to give an account of how he photographed the display.

"This is the story about my halo picture.

I was having lunch at my parents home when my mother asked me to look out to see how nice the sun was shining. At once I saw that this was not like any halo I had ever seen before. The sight of the sky was amazing. I then went to my home and grabbed the camera. My parents and I live next door to one another in Utendal, a small village outside Borlänge. I quickly checked that I had the appropriate lens, it was Samyang 14mm F2.8 that was on. The camera I used is a Canon 6D which I have modified with a Baader filter, mainly for use when I shoot the starry sky. From what I understand, the filter has no significance when shooting halo.

I went to a place on my parents courtyard where I could see as much of the display as possible. I quickly checked the settings on the camera, adjusted it to ISO200 and set the aperture to F8 to get a good depth of field. The day was quite cold (about 7 degrees below zero) and I was not wearing a jacket so I only took a few quick pictures (4pcs).

I then went back home to look at the pictures. On my way home, I also saw arcs to the north and I'm very sad that I did not take any photos of them. I quickly examined the images in Adobe Lightroom and picked an image that I uploaded to the Swedish astroforum www.astronet.se. I then went back to my parents to finish lunch.

Quite soon afterwards, I received comments on www.astronet.se by both Hans Bengtsson and Timo Karhula, who thought the display appeared to be something out of the ordinary. Hans thought I should send the image to Les Cowley and Timo thought I should publish it on www.taivaanvahti.fi. I received answers fairly quickly from both Les and www.taivaanvahti.fi. At 15:35 UTC 2018-12-14 I received mail from Marko Pekkola where he wrote:
"Congratulations Magnus of finding a new halo form in the sky in solar display! Several experts analysed this photo and Marko Riikonen identified one of the forms as the first multiple scattering halo of its kind.”  - Magnus Edbäck

Image processed by Nicolas Lefaudeux.

Image processed by Nicolas Lefaudeux.

Nicolas Lefaudeux has analysed and stacked the four raw files with background subtraction and produced these breathtakingly complex and beautiful processed images. The new halo is a multiple scattering [MS] halo, ie a "halo of a halo". These are extremely rare and can only appear in the brightest displays with very bright halos to forms.

This new halo is the uta of parhelion / parhelion of uta and it is the 5th MS halo form (after par of par, uta of uta, uta of pc/pc of uta, and cza of pillar). It requires both a very bright parhelion and a very bright uta to form. 

This uta of par/par of uta was the most likely MS halo form expected to be caught, because of its relative ease to appear in simulation and because it is not overlapped with other bright regular halos.

All images copyright Magnus Edbäck

Display of 3rd August 2017 in Pskov oblast, Russia

Every frame of animation is stack which covers 2,5 min. Colored version is here

At the begining of the display, beautiful cirrus covered the sky, but I did not notice any halos at the time. When I came out a little later, I was surprised to see a bright parhelion and a middle Lowitz arc which crosses it! Cumulus limited the display, so I could observe halos only in gaps between these clouds. There was one short episode when I saw bright upper tangent and suncave Parry arcs. The following rare halos were found in the stacks:

 -well defined upper and middle Lowitz arcs (1) and possible lower Lowitz arc (2)
-part of helic arc (3)
-supralateral Tape arc (4)

Two cases of surface helic arc

Recently surface helic arcs were observed in Finland. The two photos of this halo by Mirko Lahtinen, above and below, were taken in Jämsä on the morning of 21. January (original observation). The third photo further below was taken by me the following night in Rovaniemi (original observation). It shows segments of surface helic arc on a car roof in streetlamp light. Suitable crystals had grown only on car roofs, nothing was seen on the ground despite surveying some lakes and fields around Rovaniemi. 

In both cases the charasteristic cover of large, sticking-out frost crystals served to give heads-up for the possibility of the phenomenon. 

Surface helic arc has a crossing angle different from celestial helic arcs. It is thus a genuine surface halo. Not many have been observed. See Les Cowley's OPOD post about two earlier instances of the effect.

A pure breed uppervex Hastings

In snow gun diamond dust displays Parry orientation is often strongly emphasized in relation to column orientation. There may be no signs of column orientation at all, except for perhaps a slight tanget arc brightening on top of 22° halo.

Such displays have made observers to ask themselves whether the uppervex Hastings arc – the Hastings arc component that is touching the uppervex Parry arc – could be sometimes be obseved in addition to the usual Wegener, or even without it. So far displays where light source elevation allows separation of uppervex Hastings and Wegener have not resulted in any candidates.

However, in spotlight displays where lamp is at or below the horizon, we have managed to photograph during the last and this winter a several of cases that are suggestive of an uppervex Hastings. And not even suggestive, but outright assertive.

The uppervex Hastings intensifies with lowering light source elevation, only complication is that it then starts to overlap with Wegener and identification must be done on the basis of other halos in the display. If Parry orientation halos are prominent and column orientation halos such as 46° lateral arcs, diffuse arcs and subhelic and Tricker arc are very weak or absent, then we might say that the “Hastgener” in the display is indeed Hastings arc.

As an example of a display that leaves little doubt of its Hastings nature, here is shown a one that Marko Mikkilä observed this year, on the 2nd January in Sievi. The lamp was resting on the ground on a rather level field and is according to Mikkilä about 3 degrees below the camera.

We see no evidence of column orientation – no 46° lateral arcs, no Tricker, no subhelic arc. Instead, in the image there is an overwhelming helic arc and Tape arcs, which both are solely Parry orientation born. Thus the faint “Hastgener” must be an uppervex Hastings arc, rather than Wegener.

Above is a attempt at simulating with HaloPoint. It supports the Parry scenario untarnished by columns, even though the details may not be quite right. Perhaps the most striking mismatch is with the subanthelic arc, which is bright in simulation but seems to be missing from the photo. However, there is a darker area which looks as if shaped by subanthelic arc. This seems to be a real effect, we have seen similar looking dark voids inside anthelic arcs before and in an upcoming post I will be showing a good example of such darkness associated with this halo. Perhaps the more intense parts of subanthelic arc are outside left outside of Mikkilä’s photo, although in that case it should have been possible to make a matching simulation. I actually did find an option which was better in that respect, but other parts got too wrong to take it seriously.

An earlier display in the same location by Mikkilä seems to also contain a pure uppervex Hastings.

Wegener or Hastings?

This spotlight display that was photographed in Rovaniemi on the night of 5/6 January rises the question of whether it is Wegener or Hastings arc or both together that is seen here. From the outset, as there is helic arc but no subhelic arc one could argue that it is rather the uppervex Hastings arc.

When comparing with simulations (below) it does not look that obvious anymore. The curvature and extent of the arc looks more akin to Wegener than Hastings (the side view image). And it is possible to simulate Wegener without subhelic arc by using thin plates in column orientation. Indeed, to have best agreement with the images, in all simulations thin plates were used both in Parry and column orientation.

In the image on the left the crystal h/d is 0.1 for all simulations. In the one on the right it is h/d 0.03 for rotations of 0.5 and 5 degrees, for full rotation simulation h/d 0.1 was used. Crystals are triangular, oriented in Parry orientation so that the tip is pointing up.

Well, none of these simulations come out satisfying. The light source elevation for simulations is -5 degrees.

Marko Riikonen / Nicolas Lefaudeux

– added one more image with simulation containing both Wegener and Hastings

More photos from three weeks ago in Rovaniemi

It seems putting the photos of the recent displays to my web page will delay. So, in a meanwhile here are two more photos of the display three weeks back.

When light source is at 0° elevation, some difficulties arises in identifying certain halos. Tricker arc and subanthelic arc merge together, as do helic and subhelic arcs. However, the subanthelic arc is formed by Parry-oriented crystals, while Tricker arc is from singly oriented columns. Because in this display the 46° supralateral arc is rather strong, and there are only weak indications of 46° Parry or Tape arcs, probably singly oriented columns were in command. The even brightness of the Tricker/subanthelic loop is also typical for Tricker arc. Subanthelic arc has strong brightenings on the sides - at least in the simulations - and that is actually what seems to be present in the the display of last weekend.

The reason why halos are seen so strongly in the halogen light is probably the relatively dark background sky as compared to sun or moon situation. Yet all the halogen lamp displays that I have photographed so far have been hampered by city lights. Once the crystal cloud drifts to the dark outskirts of the city, more intense appearances should be expected.

By Marko Riikonen

A spring-starter in Finland

On 25th March a relatively small high-cloud area swept over Southern Finland and produced a fine halo for observers in Helsinki, Espoo, Turku and Riihimaki. In Riihimaki the upper Lowitz arc was continuously in the sky for over three hours. In addition to Lowitz, there were also pyramidal crystal halos (9 halo/column arc?, 24 lower plate arcs, 18 plate arcs), helic arc and Wegener anthelic arc.

The photograph above is taken by Jukka Ruoskanen, and more photographs can be found here. In Helsinki the display was photographed by Marko Riikonen, in Espoo by Panu Lahtinen and Timo Kuhmonen and in Turku by Ismo Luukkonen

By Jukka Ruoskanen

Diamond dust from Himos snow guns

Mika Aho was also on the halo move on Saturday 4. November. He headed for the Himos ski centre, where some 30 snow guns were operational. The trip was worthwhile. From skiing flanks spread an ice crystal cloud that, even though a bit unclean in appearance, presented some of the rarest halos.

These rare halos are best shown in the photo on the left where several white arcs are seen crossing the sky. Wegener, helic, subhelic, subanthelic and Tricker arcs are all present. Outside Antarctica subanthelic arc has been observed reliably only twice before, both times in Finland. Now Aho's photos add the third observation.

More of the display is to be found here. Like Oksanen, also Aho got halos in moonlight the following night. These photos are under the same link.

 

by Marko Riikonen

 

Originally in Halo reports

Diamond dust season opened in Finland

On October 26 the pupils of the Särkijärvi school near the small northern Finland town of Muonio stopped suddenly their indoor activities and rushed out - somebody had noticed a halo wonder in the sky.

At the school were also excursionists from University of Lapland. Among them, Päivi Linnansaari happened to have a camera handy and took several photos of which a selection is presented here.

The display had all the basic flavourings of a great diamond dust display, including the helic arc, circular Lowitz arc and diffuse anthelic arc - the latter of which is seen faintly in the lower left image. But then there is also a new halo: the 46° contact arcs. Theoretically it has been known for quite a while, but no convincing photographs have come up untill now. The halo shows up in the upper right image as three arcs below the circumzenith arc. Probably a comparison with simulation is needed to get a proper grip of it.

The halo display made it also to local newspaper. Couple of kilometres from the location there is a ski center, so the halos may likely have originated from snow guns.

Lower sunvex Parry in Finland

Lower sunvex Parry is a halo of which for long time only one certain report was known: the photograph by Takeshi Ohtake in 1979 in Alaska, shown in Walt Tape's book "Atmospheric Halos". 

Now the sightings of lower sunvex Parry seem to be increasing. Last winter it was photographed twice in Finland and this winter we have two reports as well. Picture above is the latest sighting of lower sunvex Parry (arrow), by Marko Mikkilä at Sievi on the night of 15/16 January 2006. The display was caused by snow machines from nearby ski resort. Moon elevation is 40°. 

Winter's first sunvex Parry was seen on 8. January 2006 at Himos ski resort. Photos of the display by Mika Aho are seen here. Simulations with different crystals are here.

Mikkilä display had also other rare halos. He reports lower Tape arcs, Wegener arcs, helic arc and subhelic arc. Also interesting halos from car headlights were present.