LateNightHacking Louis Journal

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OMG, A FIRE RAINBOW! AND I SAW IT! YES!!

And  I knew what it was (more) and that it was a rare and special treat to see one. And my iPhone again demonstrates it's glory as a digital swiss army knife!

Here is the original photo. This was taken on 2008-05-09 at 12:50pm from here looking SSE. More pictures here.

I was looking at it through polarized sunglasses, so the colors were much more distinct. Here's a version with the contrast boosted to make the colors stand out more. It's closer to what I remember.

Ed, Zach, and I were headed out to lunch, and I was driving. Suddenly I said "Holy cow! Look at that! A fire rainbow! Quick, quick, take a picture!" and tried not to veer into the cars in the other lanes. :) I think my polarized glasses made it show up more - I don't know if anyone else would have noticed it. I think it's even less likely they would have gotten excited about it. :)

(Yes, I know it's called a circumhorizon arc, but fire rainbow gets people's attention better. :)

Later we also saw a cirumscribed halo (I think - it could have been the 22° halo, but it was very rainbow colored).

Update: This may have been an infralateral arc rather than a circumhorizon arc, but it's still rare! The picture on that page most closely resembles what I remeber seeing later when I had parked the car. I didn't study up on the subject until after I saw it, so I didn't know what I should be looking for. Also, it was pretty pale, so I didn't take many pictures. I should have taken more!