Latest halo displays from Finland

During the last days series of reasonable displays developed over Southern Finland. Three of them were in moonlight and one in sunlight. Elliptical halo, 9° and 18° halos and Parry arc were observed. See photos and drawings here.

The picture on the left shows the halo developement in Tampere on the night of 14/15 March. Among common halos, faint 9° halo and Parry arc are also present.

Trickers and diffuse Anthelic Arcs in Germany

Alexander Wuensche from Görlitz (southeast Germany) observed and photographed these wonderful Anthelic arcs.

He writes: "In the morning of February 23, 2006, snow stars fell from the cloudless sky. The temperature was 2 deg below zero and there was a slight breeze from northeast. In the northern and northwestern direction the were remains of a Stratus and Stratocumulus cloud layer. In these clouds, the Anthelion with Trickers and diffuse Anthelic Arcs appeared.
The phenomenon was restricted to the direction opposite of the sun. In the direction of the sun I only spotted two small non-spectacular sun pillars."

Elliptical halo in Diamond Dust

At 13.03.2006 accumulate a diamond dust on the 1835m high top of the German mount Wendelstein above a 1400m high cloud layer, which consists of tiny little snowstars and very long ice columns.

Therein forms out a bright glittering lower sun pillar with subsun. After a half an hour both halo kinds weaken clearly, but in return there accumulate two elliptical rings around the sun, before the whole halo spook was disappeared. The diamond dust was in the air all over the day, but no halos were observably anymore.

Light pillars in Finland

These light pillars were seen on the night of 8/9 March 2006 in Lappeenranta. The spot-like appearance is because the majority of the plate like ice crystals reflecting the lamp light are consentrated in a layer above the ground. Photo was taken by Tomppa Jurvanen. More of his scenes from the same display: 1, 2, 3

Venus Pillar and Star Pillars

Neither sun pillar nor moon pillar is not a rare halo.
But a "venus pillar" is hardly found.
The photo was taken by Myao (his handle), who was searching for Comet Pojmanski.
It was before dawn of Mar 4, 2006, in Tsukuba, Japan.
He also observed short "star pillars"!
A close-up image can be seen in his site (in Japanese).

Good display in Finland

This halo complex was seen in Kajaani on 26. February 2006. The photo was taken by Kalevi Härkönen. For more see here.

Halo meeting in Finland

Coming summer, on the weekend of 14-16 July there will be a meeting for halo and other atmospheric optics enthusiasts in Finland. The location is the Artjärvi observatory in Southern Finland countryside. In the program there will be talks, watching people's photos and just hanging around with each other.

Many Finns and some foregin participants have already signed in. We hope to get wide participation from abroad. The official program will be kept in English language. If you are interested to come, please contact me at the address found here and I will tell more details about the meeting.

(The picture shows odd radius halos from last summer in Eastern Finland)