Sun dogs

More refraction of light.

Recently I found myself on the ferry from Kiel to Gothenburg, watching the sun rise.

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Next to the sun, I noticed a piece of a rainbow.

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Now as we all know, rainbows are supposed to only be visible when we are facing away from the sun. Clearly not the case here.

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By the way, I’m talking about the rainbow-y thingy to the right of the sun, the spec close to the sun is probably something on the lens of my camera, or some other artefact of some sort.

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So I read up on the rainbow-y thingy, and apparently it is called a sun dog.

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There are supposed to be two of those, on either side of the sun.

IMG_9494Do you know those medieval pictures of three suns, with the outer two facing the inner one? Apparently those are supposed to be sun dogs! I never knew.

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Anyway, I stood, fascinatedly watching the rainbow-y thingy.

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Occasionally distracted by cool ships.

IMG_9522The higher the sun rose, the more colorful the rainbow-y thingy became. While it had been colorful for the naked eye (ok, I’m wearing glasses, but you know what I mean. No filters or polarization or anything), it started to show up on pictures, too.

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In the beginning I tried finding the second sun dog on the left of the sun, but there was nothing. But the one on the right got prettier and prettier!

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Eventually we arrived in the port of Gothenburg and I got distracted by container terminals and other exciting things that you will surely hear about very soon.

IMG_9551But for now I’ll leave you with this amazing view of the little islands right before you enter Gothenburg. Ready for a Scandinavian holiday? :-)

 

2 thoughts on “Sun dogs

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