Friday 17 February 2017

Reflection subsun in Southern Finland


By Matti Helin

6th January, 2017, I observed a quite clear reflection subsun in the southern Finland.

Local time was around 11am. I looked outside and saw a nice sun pillar. Nothing special about it, but I decided to take a couple of photos of it anyway. I left outside rather hastily because there were clouds floating from north that would soon block the Sun.

I got the pictures and stayed for a while longer and saw the clouds running over the Sun, as I had predicted. Surprisingly, the pillar didn't disappear. I waited for a little while longer but the halo was stubborn. Then I realised, the source was not the Sun, directly, but its reflection! The sea is about ten kilometres away. It was most likely frozen, but wasn't yet covered by snow.

I also observed (probably) reflected crepuscular rays. If indeed so, it would probably be the first time ever that these two, refection subsun and reflected crepuscular rays had been photographed simultaneously.


2 comments:

  1. I have not seen reflection subsun before accompanied by ordinary sun pillar. And most of all, these are the first photos of reflection subsun from ice surface. In the last photo there is interestingly some vertical slicing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here's another picture that shows some vertical slicing:
    https://mattihelin.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Maisemat/Taivaan%20tapahtumia/Reflection%20sub%20sun%2006012017/MJH_3247.jpg

    I guess it can be found in most of these pictures if strong unsharp mask is applied.

    ReplyDelete