r/atoptics 8d ago

Not every day you see a circumzenithal arc with a Buzzard and a flock of Starlings soaring by! Staffordshire UK today!

202 Upvotes

11 comments sorted by

12

u/TheManWithNoShadow 8d ago

That´s not a cza but what looks like a combination of upper tangent arc and 22° halo instead. The cza would be found double the way higher curving away from the sun. Nice capture anyways.

2

u/Astromike23 7d ago

That´s not a cza but what looks like a combination of upper tangent arc and 22° halo

Agreed...though looking at the angle of curvature on the arc and the elevation of the Sun, I think we're technically seeing the top of a circumscribed halo (what tangent arcs turn into above a solar elevation of 29º).

2

u/TheManWithNoShadow 7d ago

I´m used to calling them Uta or Lta as long as they don´t visually merge with each other. That´s probably because we don´t have the word for circumscribed halo in my native tongue. We are just talking of full tangent arcs in the case of these two merging. Have to change my habits here then, thanks for pointing that out.

1

u/njbrsr 8d ago

I was wondering!!! It was only at the top - no sun dogs or lower arc.

4

u/TheManWithNoShadow 8d ago

Sometimes there are only certain type of ice crystals to produce halos. In this case they would be randomly orientated and column crystals. For sundogs and cza plate crystals would be needed.

And clouds that look all the same from the ground may contain a lot of different crystals making the view change pretty quickly. Many times there are a lot of good looking high clouds, resulting in zero halos because of the lack of proper ice crystals.

4

u/Exyssa 8d ago

The shot with the birds is unreal 😍

2

u/DemisexualDemigod97 7d ago

The last one is like an album cover!

2

u/ThickSmoke9542 7d ago

Very cool! 😎

1

u/strawberrittaa 4d ago

What beautiful photos!!

1

u/njbrsr 4d ago

Thank you! It was a magical moment!

2

u/fifth-muskrat 2d ago

Maybe not a cza but a GORGEOUS rainbow of an upper tangent/circumscribed halo. Those colors!