Mid-elevation halo display with column crystals in control

Throughout my work day there were a number of halos that were coming and going. Around midday there was 22d halo, circumscribed halo, parhelic circle, and parhelia. Later on at break time I got 22 and circumscribed halos and there was a nice infralateral arc on the left and a possible lower suncave parry arc not sure on that need help to identify short piece of arc to the left of 22d halo. Before I left work I imaged an upper suncave parry arc. The final stage had nice upper tangent arc and a complete supralateral arc.

Moon halo over Southern Finland - oriented columns in command

Little after midnight on the night of 5-6th January a fairly bright 22 halo and upper tangent arc appeared in high clouds. At this stage nothing implied that anything better would be on the way. However, at around 1.30 a.m. the halos arising from oriented columns had got much better and upper and lower tangent arcs stretched out to form a circumscribed halo. Infralateral arcs and a 9 halo appeared as well. Judging from the quality of circumscribed halo and infralateral arcs at the maximum phase one might suspect that rays scattered by oriented columns may have partially contributed to the intensity of the 9 halo.

The display ended at around 4 a.m. when low level clouds rolled in. Shortly before that 46 halo and parhelic circle were well formed (although faint). According to the reports so far the display was best seen in Tampere (photos by Jari Luomanen) and in Riihimaki (photos by Jukka Ruoskanen) .

Lunar display in Switzerland

On Nov/11/2006 I observed a nice high moon halo display in Switzerland. Visible was a bright circumscribed halo and a infralateral or circumhorizon arc.

Circular circumscribed halo

This high sun picture by Dorothé Trompert was taken in Alice Springs, Australia, on 15 Nov 2005 13:17 LT. The solar height was 75°. Although the halo is almost circular, it is probably not the 22° halo itself. Instead, the strong peak in its intensity near the halo angle and its vivid colors indicates that it is a circumscribed halo. This observation supports my conjecture that in many of the historic reports of widely noticed 22° halos the presence of a bright circumscribed halo contributed to its visibility. This happened, among other cases, with the so-called 'Chernobyl-halo' in 1986 and with Emperor Augustus's halo in 44BC.

Circumscribed halo and pyramid halos in Sardinia

This display was captured by Jan Drahokoupil in Sardinia on 6. September. The 22° halo is surrounded by elliptical circumscribed halo. The small halo around the sun is 9° halo or 9° column arc (or both together). Simulations could give better clue. Later on the display changed and there were also 18° plate arcs.

More photos here.