Circular rainbow seen from aircraft window

[snopes]

A rare image of a circular rainbow has been taken from the window of a Thai Airways jet.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ft-window.html

[Jay Tea]

I've seen a few of those, even if perhaps I thought they were a trick of the light, but I have flown hundreds of times* - I don't think they're 'that' rare when you remove the horizon from the equation, or at least that was what I was told - and with digital cameras everywhere these days I guess we'll see some more good shots of these in the future.

*That said, I have few interesting shots taken from aircraft - some nice pics of the usual stuff, but nothing this cool...

[Pudding Crawl]

Nifty; I asked about rainbows seen from aircraft in the Stupid Questions thread recently. It is nice to see an example.

[geminilee]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

even if perhaps I thought they were a trick of the light

They are a trick of the light. All rainbows are tricks of the light.

[Jay Tea]

Originally Posted by geminilee

They are a trick of the light. All rainbows are tricks of the light.

Really? Well, I hereby disown science.

To refine, I said 'trick of the light' in as much as I thought my observations might be impeded by something other than atmospheric conditions. 'Rainbows' aren't tricks to me, I know how they are formed. 'Trick' presumes some skullduggery

[Ravenhull]

I've seen them a couple times while flying, they are sometimes referred to as 'glories.'

I'm trying to remember enough to be sure, but I think one of James Burke's shows talked about how a Scottish scientist seeing one from his mountaintop weatherstation was given inspiration which led to work in early nuclear theory.

[TheLazenby]

You know, if you fly through five of those, you'll get a Power Star. :-P

[star_splinter]

I didn't know they were rare; I've seen them and I haven't flown all that much! They are very neat, though.

[para1]

Originally Posted by Ravenhull

... James Burke's shows ...

DOH! I loved the show he did called Connections(?), where he would state two seemingly unrelated facts like "The rise of the Holy Roman Empire led to the invention of gene therapies" and then he would lead you right through all the connections until...BAM ...there you were at gene therapy.

The only thing that would screw me up is if I did not watch from the very beginning I would be totally lost.

[kizzcee007]

oh how weird...I was talking to my dad yesterday and the name of the bloke who presented Connections was puzzling us! I knew the surname but couldn't recall his first name...Thank you for clearing that up.

[Sue Bee]

Are parahelia really that rare?

[Lgreywolf]

I saw one of these just this past July, from my backyard. Or maybe it was something different, but I remember calling in to Mr. Greywolf "There's a rainbow around the sun!" And it was; a good distance out, so I didn't burn out my retinas or anything, but that's what it looked like to me, very wide and rather thin but with all the colors visible.

[Little Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Ravenhull

I've seen them a couple times while flying, they are sometimes referred to as 'glories.'

Actually a glory is different to a circular rainbow - glories are smaller (and the picture appears to be a glory):

From an aeroplane, one has the opportunity to see the whole circle of the rainbow, with the plane's shadow in the centre. This phenomenon can be confused with the glory, but a glory is usually much smaller, covering only 5°–20°.

I'm quite sure I've seen a hint of a circular rainbow from my office window - you could see the main arc very clearly but I swear that I could see a very faint continuation below the horizon. Not sure how common that would be!

[Little Galaxy]

Most 'circular rainbow' pictures out there seem to be of glories and sun haloes - but here's an actual full-circle rainbow.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

I remember the first time I created a circular rainbow with a garden hose, spraying water over the garden. Very pretty!

Silas