I posted this picture back on September 17th 2011, and it recently popped up again in my 'You might also like' widget.
If you enlarge the picture (which I can't for some reason) you'll notice that the sky 'inside' the rainbow is lighter in colour than it is 'outside'.
Does anyone know why this should be? Or is it just a photographic illusion?
Once again, any answer (serious or amusing) will be kindly received.
20 comments:
There IS a serious answer...I can't remember it now.
An aside though...The angle of refraction(I think that it is the word) within a rainbow was found to be 42 .... So now we know that the answer is the rainbow but we're still hunting the Ultimate Question!! ;-)
Don't know. Ask Zippy, Bungle or G-G-G-Geoffrey.
I don't know the answer, but i took a similar photo looking from our house towards the Mendips. I thought it was the magic of Glastonbury which caused it :-)
I cannot seem to enlarge your picture, Cro, and the bit of sky between the two bows looks the same to me, but I know what you mean. I also don't know what causes it. Hope that helps.
I can't enlarge it either... dunno why.
Maybe we will never have the answer!
Have no idea, but I do think you were lucky to have a camera in your hand at that moment and get a shot like that. Awesome!
I don't have a clue why, but I am sure there is an explanation for it.
I'm thinking refraction, but also it looks as if there's a break in the clouds, showing lighter skies.
megan
Google and ye shall find. Here you go, hon.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2007-01-08-rainbow-bright_x.htm
Because Cro, the inside of a rainbow is always the magical portion. The outside is just plain sky. Of course you have to be a bit magical yourself to see the difference. (Sorry Tom)
Thanks Brenda.... now why didn't I think of Google? A bit complicated, but I get the gist.
Any one as confused as moi, can go to Brenda's link above. QED.
Donna, with such a wonderful Irish name, you'd just HAVE to believe in 'crocks of gold'. So do I.
http://eo.ucar.edu/rainbows/ makes it fairly simple:
Many leftover light wavelengths are reflected *smaller* than the rainbow wavelengths, ie inside the bow, but less light greater that the bow's wavelengths - ie outside the bow. This light is all wavelengths mixed up, so comes out white.
Apparently there's also a darker band *between* the two bows, called the Alexander Dark Band after some dude Alexander who noticed it 1800 years ago.
It would make a good name for a music group. Perhaps of the Afro-American persuasion...?
I see a double rainbow
No idea but it's a fantastic picture
'Twas a bit of beauty just for you, and you were lucky enough to have a camera in hand to record it. Did ye look for the potty of gold?
Oh dear Cro...is that physics or could it be chemistry...maybe geography....I'm stumped...great pic though!!
Before I read all the above explanations, scientific and otherwise, I would have suggested that the interior space was filled with angels and energies so magnificent that even your camera's eye could behold them. I still feel that could be so.
Thanks K. I'd copyright ADB if I was you... someone might well want to use it.
That, or light shining up from the crock of gold!
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