Sunday, August 18, 2019

Sunday Green Flash

For an observer just north of Hato, the Space Station sailed right across the Moon at 7:25 this morning, but I didn't see it due to haze and clouds, grrr.   I've tried to image this a couple times and failed, but I did observe it once, back in the day.  But, on the other hand, there was a nice green flash tonight!  You'll want to watch the video clip full screen.

When the Sun is about to touch the horizon, a sort of red false sun rises up to meet it.  This is called an inferior mirage.  While the atmospheric refraction is indeed splitting the sun into different colors like a prism, one needs the inferior mirage to amplify the effect so we can see it easily.

When I see the red false sun come up from the horizon to meet the setting sun, I can be pretty sure I'll see a green flash.

During the second half of the video, there are a couple bits of green that peel off from the top of the sun.  That is caused by an inferior mirage too, I believe.

Oh, and I'm going to try to borrow better tripod to see if it would help reduce all the wind induced jiggling in the videos.

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