Sun Dogs

Just when I thought that all I might have to offer this evening was another nice cloud shot, along comes an optical phenomenon to make my day.

Sun dogs, or mock suns, or parhelia, are bright spots that appear on either side of the sun. They're caused by ice crystals in high clouds refracting sunlight.

This image has been cropped, but is otherwise unprocessed - for the full image, including a fuller view of the clouds, see here. I last saw one over the moor in the same spot on August 31 last year, although I saw something which may have been one last Sunday in Wales, but that was more or less opposite the setting sun, so I'm not sure that can have been a sun dog.

Thanks for all the nice comments and ratings on yesterday's crescent moon - I'm definitely looking to the skies at the moment.

when cerberus ~ meets ra ~ sun dog ~ with three ~ heads