November 22, 2006: Fogbow

This was the Astro pic of the Day recently and I keep coming back to it. Not only is it a beautiful shot, but I've never even heard of the phenomenon.

It's a "fogbow", let the APOD folks tell you about it:

Is that white arch real? What is being seen is a fogbow, a reflection of sunlight by water drops similar to a rainbow but without the colors. The fog itself is not confined to an arch -- the fog is mostly transparent but relatively uniform. The fogbow shape is created by those drops with the best angle to divert sunlight to the observer. The fogbow's relative lack of colors are caused by the relatively smaller water drops. The drops active above are so small that the quantum mechanical wavelength of light becomes important and smears out colors that would be created by larger rainbow water drops acting like small prisms reflecting sunlight. The above striking image of a fogbow was taken last week with the Sun behind the photographer. Close inspection of the far right of the full image will show one of the two suspension towers of the Golden Gate Bridge in California, USA.

Fogbow...sounds to me like the name of a band made up of a combination of Foghat and Richie Blackmore's Rainbow.

Tchah, Fogbow In The Dark just doesnt have that... ring to it.

Strange sighting......San Francisco.....figures. :smack:

makes a great desktop.

fogbow......fogbow......it's kind of catchy. say it seven times fast, out loud. it works like toy boat. Fogbow Leghat, I say.

The drops active above are so small that the quantum mechanical wavelength of light becomes important and smears out colors that would be created by larger rainbow water drops acting like small prisms reflecting sunlight.

?? Wow I got lost there ... but I get it now, after a quick brushup on physics. It's like, can we just appreciate the 'bow without dissecting it?

It seems more mystical knowing how it can be a rainbow without color.

After all, here abouts, fog is so ordinary . . .

Makes me wonder how many times I've seen one without really noticing . . .

Wonder what that Fogbow looks like from a plane? ;)

beaut-e-ful!

I can totally understand the conditions being right in that area for it. Weather there can change every 5 minutes, but usually foggy.

Jebediah wrote:

I can totally understand the conditions being right in that area for it. Weather there can change every 5 minutes, but usually foggy.

Yeah, you change from fog up there to fog down here then fog nowhere then fog everywhere. No wonder the people are crazy!