Friday, May 14, 2010

Palomar Flies Its Colors

Check out this pic of the dome of the 200-inch Hale Telescope taken yesterday:

The photo was taken with an iPhone by Scott Calman, the observatory's IT guy (I don't know his real title). I am reasonably sure that the photo shows what may be a circumzenithal arc circumhorizon arc. Have we got any atmospheric scientists to lend some more info on this?

Update: Thanks to commenter jg for pointing me to a circumhorizon arc, which seems to be the correct name for this.
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3 comments:

  1. jgMay 14, 2010 at 2:21 PM

    Scott,
    A circumzenithal arc appears almost overhead and has a pronounced smile shape. Is the perspective greatly distorted by the camera? It may be a circumhorizon arc. One of my favorite websites deals with this phenomena:

    http://www.atoptics.co.uk/

    You can see a circumhorizon arc on this page:
    http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/notabow.htm

    And, I've bagged a couple circumzenithal's here:
    http://brightstarswildomar.blogspot.com/2010/01/circumzenithal-arc-again.html

    http://brightstarswildomar.blogspot.com/2009/03/ive-been-chasing-circumzenuthal-arcs.html

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  2. Palomar ObservatoryMay 14, 2010 at 2:44 PM

    You are correct jg. I agree that it is most likely a circumhorizon arc.

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  3. James GuilfordMay 16, 2010 at 1:56 PM

    Whoa! Look at the photo I shot from Westlake in Northeastern Ohio Saturday at about 1:00 PM EDT... Same deal!

    http://bit.ly/aufj5q

    ReplyDelete