This site is really neat. It's all about the effects of light playing off different surfaces. So you are in for some truly delightful pictures.
If you click "Contents" you are taken to a page with the other sections listed with descriptions:
Rays and Shadows — "Dust, small aerosols and moisture droplets scatter light to make the sun's rays visible and cloud and mountain shadowed air dark by comparison. Air and very small particles scatter colours selectively to paint the blues of skies and fires of sunsets. Air at varied temperatures and densities refracts the rays of setting suns and moons to fashion fantastic shapes. Unaided perspective generates apparent glows around shadows."
Water Droplets — "The tiny water droplets of clouds mists and fogs produce strange optical effects, mostly ringed and mostly brightly coloured. "Rays" have little meaning in this domain where water droplets are so small that wave diffraction and interference dominate over classical journeys of light along straight lines."
Rainbows — "The rainbow's apparent simplicity of form and purity of colour belie many subtleties of appearance and formation. There are multiple bows, coloured fringes, dark bands, radial spokes, red bows and more."
Ice Halos — "Ice crystals of gemlike quality and placement flash shafts of light to form sundogs, pillars, circular halos and sometimes intricate coloured arcs which web the sky."
High Atmosphere — "Strange mother of pearl and noctilucent clouds high above normal weather. Higher still, aurorae glow with atoms excited by vast disturbances of the Sun. Further away, dust again scatters the sun's rays to form the zodiacal light."
This site shines!
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm
If you click "Contents" you are taken to a page with the other sections listed with descriptions:
Rays and Shadows — "Dust, small aerosols and moisture droplets scatter light to make the sun's rays visible and cloud and mountain shadowed air dark by comparison. Air and very small particles scatter colours selectively to paint the blues of skies and fires of sunsets. Air at varied temperatures and densities refracts the rays of setting suns and moons to fashion fantastic shapes. Unaided perspective generates apparent glows around shadows."
Water Droplets — "The tiny water droplets of clouds mists and fogs produce strange optical effects, mostly ringed and mostly brightly coloured. "Rays" have little meaning in this domain where water droplets are so small that wave diffraction and interference dominate over classical journeys of light along straight lines."
Rainbows — "The rainbow's apparent simplicity of form and purity of colour belie many subtleties of appearance and formation. There are multiple bows, coloured fringes, dark bands, radial spokes, red bows and more."
Ice Halos — "Ice crystals of gemlike quality and placement flash shafts of light to form sundogs, pillars, circular halos and sometimes intricate coloured arcs which web the sky."
High Atmosphere — "Strange mother of pearl and noctilucent clouds high above normal weather. Higher still, aurorae glow with atoms excited by vast disturbances of the Sun. Further away, dust again scatters the sun's rays to form the zodiacal light."
This site shines!
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm
