Heiligenschein

I told you I was an angel. See my halo?

I decided to try to photograph Heiligenshein or holy light.


You can see it a bit better sometimes when you hold the camera away from your head. (Yes I may have put on a pound or two, but I am wearing my heavy coat, so no snarky comments!)

Here is a much stronger example.

The whole atmospheric optics site makes me wonder if most of my teachers had to put in extra effort to make science seem so dull, when really, it isn't.

Even the optics vocabulary is entrancing:
Specter of the Brocken. (Or just plain Brocken specter.)
Sun dogs.
Shadow hiding.
Alpenglow.
Sylvanshine.

And my new favorite sentence:
All shadows converge towards the antisolar point where the glory also shines.

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I first read about this a month or so ago, and remembered that it was supposed to work on either dew or hoarfrost. I set out in the heavy hoarfrosty morning to try to see it, but no luck. The sun rises behind a mountain here, so it's already up in the sky a good bit before we get our first strong rays.

I was kind of bummed about it not working. But an hour or so later, on the way back from feeding the chickens, I glanced across the yard and saw my heiligenschein on a particularly wet patch of clover. Cool!

It made me wonder how often I'd seen this but not really seen it. You know?

If you try it, let me know how it goes!