Pyramid halos in Tampere, Finland

This display appeared today treacherously from behind Ac clouds. It did not last long, as Ac came to veil it again. 14 frames stack from 5 minutes.

Odd radius halos from Austria

On 27th of April 2009 during the hours before noon an almost complete 23° ring was visible and also both 18° lateral arcs. All halos were visible without sunglasses. The cirrus was very dense. I know days when pyramidal halos were visible over a big area of Central Europe, but this day there are no other reported observations. The photo above shows the display with unsharp masking, but the original photo is also provided ( 1 ). Later this day only the upper part of the common 22° halo was visible.

Text: Karl Kaiser

Wegener over a large area of Europe

On 18 March, nice halo phenomena with complete and bright parhelic circle and Wegener's anthelic arc were seen in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France. The extent of the area where the Wegener was observed is remarkable!

Some of my own photos from Brannenburg, Southern Germany can be seen in an album or as a slide show ( 1 - 2 ). More pictures from other observers in West Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France are linked at spaceweather.com and in the German halo forum ( 3 - 4 ).

Text: Claudia Hinz

Elliptical and odd radius halos on the same day

On the way home from work I photographed a bright elliptical halo ( 1 ). Later on as winds from a cold front pushed a lot of low level cumuliform clouds away and I was on the state route when this happened and I held my sunglasses near my car's windshield I could make out a bright arc on top of a halo and a closer look showed another halo. I pulled off on to a small road and got to watch a half decent odd radius halo. in all I got 9, 18, 20, 23, and faint 35d halos and a bright upper 23d plate arc ( 2 - 3 ).

Text: Michael Ellestad

Lowitz arcs

Lowitz arcs were first observed by Tobias Lowitz in 1790. Ever since, these arcs have been observed by numerous observers ( 1 ). These particular arcs were photographed on February 19 in Finland.

Halo Meeting 2009

There is less than half a year left until Halo Meeting 2009. The "official" registration form ( 1 ) has been added to our website, and also important information about the costs and the method of payment. Please, read these pages carefully, fill in the form, and keep it in mind that the deadline for both registering and paying the fee is 31 May 2009. You will notice that our homepage has moved to a new address – this is due to regular problems with the previous server ( 2 ).

We are looking forward to hosting this event very much.

More light on spatial halos

Streetlamp halos with their spatial form can be memorable experiences for the viewer. Yet, we know rather little of them. But now this is changing as Walt Tape has taken a look at several spatial halos in four articles ( 1 ). There are numerous revolutionary insights and a whole new nomenclature is created. And best of all, articles can be read also by mathematically less gifted as there are hardly no equations.