Diffraction – Basement Science

Follow up to an Interesting Photo: In Flight

September 30, 2016August 3, 2011 by Ben Washington

To all,

Recently we discussed this interesting photo:

Thanks to all who commented on our previous post for the help in understanding what is generating the color rings, but I still wanted a little more understanding. I took the liberty to dig a little deeper, meaning reading beyond a wikipedia article, and I found that a NASA satellite imaged the same phenomenon: NASA photo. The NASA satellite photographed a glory just like this photo only the diameter was miles larger. I also found three other informative discussions: Here, here, and here(p145). Thanks to all who commented on our previous post for the help in understanding what is generating the color rings, but I more understanding.

Lets try to nail this thing down.

Time for an Interesting Photo: In-Flight

September 30, 2016July 31, 2011 by Ben Washington

To all,

Here is an interesting photo I captured while in flight. I love looking out of the window during flights because you can see a lot of very interesting things, and this one I had not seen before. It it the shadow of the airplane on an adjacent cloud. This is neat in itself, but not very curious. The curious part is the ring of color bands like a rainbow surrounding the shadow. As a note to those concerned, my phone was on airplane mode, so no interference created here. You’ve got to obey those flight attendants!