Solar optical effect from plane?

Hi all,

On a flight from Southampton to Dublin today I had a window-seat on the sun-side of the plane. Thinking that there would be no real chance of optical effects from this side (no glories etc), I didn't bother to look out the window until about half-way through the flight.

I saw projected on the clouds below the sun what seemed to be a mock-sun. It wasn't just a usual reflection but something much better defined. As I looked more closely, I noticed that it also held all the rainbow colours. It became more defined and looked very similar to the recent tangent arc that I saw from my house.

However this was below the sun (on the clouds). Any idea what it might have been? It disappeared as we moved past the cloud and wasn't visible for the rest of the trip. I was cursing myself for not having brought my camera onboard.

Yup, this sounds EXACTLY like what was described on a Science at NASA podcast I listened to this evening. The text version is here: science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22nov_thanksgivingskies.htm

Bart.

Yup, this sounds EXACTLY like what was described on a Science at NASA podcast I listened to this evening. The text version is here: science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22nov_thanksgivingskies.htm

Bart.

Perfect! Thanks a million Bart. That's precisely it. I didn't see sun-dogs either side but I did see the sub-sun and a lesser definied lower sun pillar. I'll be sure to have the wideangle camera with me for all my flights now!