Solar circles

Martin spotted these wile we were out yesterday taking images

Cool! What causes them?

Bart.

Its caused by rays from the sun, passng through holes in upper cloud layers, and being projected (according to a bystanders point of view) onto lower lying cloud, as illustrated below:



Its a nice effect, though has nothing to do with astronomy - its a meteorlogical phenomena.

Seanie.

Hi Conor,

I'm not sure if you use flickr for storing pictures at all but I noticed there is a group there for atmospheric optics.

www.flickr.com/groups/sundogs_halos_sunp...s_atmosphericoptics/

You might like to sign up and post some of your images there.

Cheers,
~Albert

Thanks for letting me know what they are. I will also add them onto that site thanks

pretty cool