The Dog's Bs

Today, blippers, you nearly didn't get one from me.

Due to computer issues.

I had to rush to 'Where in the World?' To get a new connectoring-up-cable.

On the way back, when hurtling along the motorway I saw a dog. Not of the canine variety, but a dog of the sky.

It was a sun dog or parhelia as they are more correctly known.

What was even stranger was this was a double boll**ks of a sun dog, the likes of which I have never seen before.

Observe the rather rubbish photo, then read the physics.

On the right is the sun, partially covered by a thin layer of cirrus stratus cloud. To the left at the same level is a smaller glowing, horizontal area, and to the left of that is a small patch which looks like a partial rainbow with the red end of the spectrum nearest the sun. They are the sun dogs.

This is how it works:
When the sun is low in the sky, and there is high cirrus cloud full off ice crystals that are flat like horizontal sheets of broken glass, the sun's rays shine through them and get refracted (bent), which causes them to become visible.
Some sundogs appear white, others look like rainbows, depending on how the light travels through the ice crystals. They always occur on the same elevation as the sun.
Why there were two, I don't know, my physics doesn't extend that far.


I like science - a lot, but when people write in their dating profiles that there will need to be chemistry, I have to disagree.
I'd settle for a good measure of physics and biology myself.


Keep your eyes peeled for sun dogs, I think they are more like angels, than dogs.