Elliptical halo 3-29-2013

[Michael Ellestad]

Hey Folks,

Sorry I have not logged on here in quite a few months but after getting new computer I have been enjoying the faster speed it runs and plus there have not been any halfway decent halos in a while but on my birthday which was Good Friday in USA I saw AC clouds precipitating into a layer of ice crystals and went outside and saw an elliptical glow and after getting my sunglasses I realized an elliptical halo had been in progress and so I started getting pics and that's when the halo got better and at one point the top upper half the ellipse developed straight angles sides and the halo would come and go and would bee small one minute and larger moment later. This was a nice birthday present from the sky

Heres link to the topic plus an attempt to get image to show in my post if it does not work go to the topic.


http://ohio-optics.blogspot.com/2013/04 ... -2013.html



Attempt to show pic in my post.




Greetings from the USA,

Michael

[Elmar Schmidt]

Hi Michael,

maybe you should be renamed Ellipstad After waiting 40 years for a good pyramidal, I wonder if I will ever see an elliptical halo...

When is it best to look for one?

Cheers, Elmar

[Reinhard Nitze]

Hallo Elmar/Michael!

@ Michael:

Fantastic picture. 3 day's after our convention in ellipical halo's have been
visible in hannover (try the following link) .


@ Elmar:

Gute Frage. Was 3 Abende nach unserem Seminar in Hannover zu sehen gab, weißt Du?

Schau mal bei Les Cowley:

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz884.htm

Ich find's irre. Schade, das es nicht bei uns veröffentlicht wurde.

Zu Deiner Frage:

Ich hatte einmal das Glück, einen zu sehen und ganz schlecht zu fotografieren. Er dauerte kaum 20 Sekunden und war ein Zufallsfund beim Fotografieren von irisierenden Altocumulus. Dieser war von einem verwaisten Fallstreifen begleitet. Die Aufnahmesituation war wegen enormer Helligkeit sehr schwierig. Ein Blick durch den Sucher verbot sich, also habe ich "geschätzt" fotografiert, mit entsprechenden Ergebnis. Immerhin aber habe ich ihn (so irgendwie...) draufbekommen. Das Bild findet sich noch irgendwo hier im Forum, ist aber ziemlich schlecht.

Viele Grüße, Reinhard!

[Michael Ellestad]

Hey you two!!



@Elmar,

When looking for elliptical halos don't look in regular cirrus clouds. These halos origin is in AC altocumulus clouds and they don't form in the AC its self but in the virga streamers precipitating out of the clouds occasionally the clouds will precipitate into a layer of ice crystals like on March 23rd 2008 and when this happens you can get one of them rare long lived elliptical halos displays. So remember precipitating AC is when you look for the halos and since they form in close proximity to the sun you will need your sunglasses and macro lens for your camera since they are small and make sure you set your camera to F-32 or you will not see halo in photo.

@Reinhard,

Hey there I saw that Hannover display on Les's site and it shows two ellipses great one most I have seen was 3 ellipse back in again March 23rd 2008.


Thanks for the comments and feed back and its nice my pic showed in my post wwweeehhhhhooooo!!!!


Regards,

Michael

[Heiko Ulbricht]

Hey Michael,

welcome back! Fantastic photo!

[Michael Ellestad]

Hey Heiko!

Thanks for the comments have you even seen an elliptical halo before? They are very different from other circular halos.



Regards,

Michael

[Heiko Ulbricht]

Hey Michael,

no, I have never seen an elliptical halo before! Always just the "usual"...

[Alexander Haußmann]

Hi guys,

the comments of Michael and Reinhard on Ac virga made me think about my observation of an light pillar in such clouds from last Sunday (April 7th). So I took one of the photos (from 19:32 CEST)



and did some unsharp masking:



Could this be an elliptic halo (note the arrows)? I've also never seen one, but I remember a rather "strange" impression of the light pillar. This might be due to the appearence in front of the lower clouds, but maybe an elliptic halo went into the subconcsious. Unfortunately I was in a hurry to catch the sunset, and did only some quick snapshots of it. The vertical diameter of the bright structure is roughly 5°, calculated from the focal length.

It would be nice if you can give me some feedback (both positive or negative).

Kind regards,
Alex

[Michael Ellestad]

Hey Alex,

I have seen pictures of something like that before on a Finnish halo website where AC were forming crystals and in addition to the sun pillar there were arcs on the sides of the pillars. I also did simulations using pyramidal with gentle sloping angles of 85 deg. or less they not only formed the elliptical halos but also the arcs on the side of the pillar which are elliptical halo segments.

Regards,

Michael

[Claudia Hinz]

Was 3 Abende nach unserem Seminar in Hannover zu sehen gab, weißt Du?

Schau mal bei Les Cowley:

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz884.htm

Ich find's irre. Schade, das es nicht bei uns veröffentlicht wurde.

Ist meine Schuld, habe die Bilder fürs Forum bekommen, bin aber noch nicht dazu gekommen, sie zu veröffentlichen. Reiche sie aber noch nach, versprochen!

[Michael Ellestad]

Hey Claudia,

I saw that one, and theres two of them around the sun.


Regards,

Michael