Sun Dog and bushfires

[Bruce]

Tonight I was on the way out to my workshop and noticed that in the evening sky a pronounced "Sun Dog"(aka false sun or Parhelion) was visible. This is an optical effect caused by ice or dust high in the upper atmosphere. It creates a bright spot on lower cloud (usally cirrostratus) that looks like the sun shining from behind - the only thing is the real sun is visible a significant distance to one side! Looks sort of like a double sun (Sometimes triple or even more Sun Dogs are visible). I have never seen a Sun dog from the Waikato before, I'm wondering if it could be related to the Aussie bushfires (which often give us spectacular sunsets) with ice crystals forming around smoke particles. The effect may be limited to certain viewing angles, but did anyone else see a Sun dog tonight?
Anyone else ever seen one?
see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog

[Dave Homewood]

I didn't see owt tonight but I do recall in 1989, I was at Woodbourne on. One day we were all walking to barracks, and someone pointed out the sun was bright red. It was, bright scarlet red, though not a sunset as it was still high in the sky - I think from memory it was a lunchbreak. You could stare straight at it without glare, but the clouds did not reflect any red. Just a big red ball in the grey sky. Someone said it was because of bush fires in Aussie. It was an amazing yet short-lived phenomina.

On another occasion in the mid 1990's I was walking along Barton St in Hamilton when I heard radials. The Catalina was flying over the city and of course I stopped and watched. As it passed the general direction of the sun I noted that the sun was entirely surrounded by a circular rainbow, a perfect circle with all the rainbow colours right around the sun. My sister saw it too. It was amazing. Next day I happened to hear on the radio someone talking about it as they'd had loads of reports and it was some freak yet known weather condition - can't recall what - that makes round rainbows around the sun. Looked very cool.

[Bruce]

While googling I found a great site that explains a lot of these effects. www.atoptics.co.uk
Sundogs are closely realted to ice Halos (often visible at night around the moon) its just the ice crystals are more uniformly aligned - the above page explains it well. the circular "rainbow effect is likely to be a particularly well defined ice halo.
the other similar effect which is not related is the Glory or Brocken Spectre. you often see this from aircraft flying in bright sun above cloud. This effect is related to rainbows and is quite freaky because if you were viewing it from a formation of aircraft, the rainbow rings will only be visible around your own aircraft shadow - not the other aircraft - however people in the other aircraft will each see it around thier own!