![Fargo Sundogs 2 18 09](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Fargo_Sundogs_2_18_09.jpg)
A sun dog (or sundog) or mock sun, also called a parhelion (plural parhelia) in
meteorology
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...
, is an
atmospheric
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
optical phenomenon
Optical phenomena are any observable events that result from the interaction of light and matter.
All optical phenomena coincide with quantum phenomena. Common optical phenomena are often due to the interaction of light from the sun or moon wit ...
that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
. Two sun dogs often flank the Sun within a
22° halo
A 22° halo is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a halo with an apparent radius of approximately 22° around the Sun or Moon. When visible around the Moon, it is also known as a moon ring or winter halo. It forms as sunlight o ...
.
The sun dog is a member of the family of
halos caused by the
refraction
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...
of sunlight by
ice crystals
Ice crystals are solid ice exhibiting atomic ordering on various length scales and include hexagonal columns, hexagonal plates, dendritic crystals, and diamond dust.
Formation
The hugely symmetric shapes are due to depositional growth, n ...
in the atmosphere. Sun dogs typically appear as a pair of subtly colored patches of light,
around 22° to the left and right of the Sun, and at the same
altitude
Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...
above the horizon as the Sun. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but are not always obvious or bright. Sun dogs are best seen and most conspicuous when the Sun is near the horizon.
Formation and characteristics
![Solar halos and sundog, Salem, MA, Oct 27, 2012](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Solar_halos_and_sundog%2C_Salem%2C_MA%2C_Oct_27%2C_2012.JPG)
Sun dogs are commonly caused by the
refraction
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...
and
scattering of light from horizontally oriented plate-shaped
hexagonal
In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°.
Regular hexagon
A '' regular hexagon'' has ...
ice crystals
Ice crystals are solid ice exhibiting atomic ordering on various length scales and include hexagonal columns, hexagonal plates, dendritic crystals, and diamond dust.
Formation
The hugely symmetric shapes are due to depositional growth, n ...
either
suspended in high and cold
cirrus
Cirrus may refer to:
Science
*Cirrus (biology), any of various thin, thread-like structures on the body of an animal
*Cirrus (botany), a tendril
* Infrared cirrus, in astronomy, filamentary structures seen in infrared light
*Cirrus cloud, a typ ...
or
cirrostratus cloud
Cirrostratus is a high-level, very thin, generally uniform ''stratiform'' genus-type of cloud. It is made out of ice-crystals, which are pieces of frozen water. It is difficult to detect and it can make halos. These are made when the cloud takes t ...
s, or drifting in freezing moist air at low levels as
diamond dust
Diamond dust is a ground-level cloud composed of tiny ice crystals. This meteorological phenomenon is also referred to simply as ''ice crystals'' and is reported in the METAR code as IC. Diamond dust generally forms under otherwise clear or near ...
. The crystals act as
prisms, bending the light rays passing through them with a minimum deflection of 22°. As the crystals gently float downwards with their large hexagonal faces almost horizontal, sunlight is refracted horizontally, and sun dogs are seen to the left and right of the Sun. Larger plates wobble more, and thus produce taller sun dogs.
Sun dogs are red-colored at the side nearest the Sun; farther out the colors grade through oranges to blue. The colors overlap considerably and are muted, never pure or saturated. The colors of the sun dog finally merge into the white of the
parhelic circle
A parhelic circle is a type of halo, an optical phenomenon appearing as a horizontal white line on the same altitude as the sun, or occasionally the Moon. If complete, it stretches all around the sky, but more commonly it only appears in sections. ...
(if the latter is visible).
The same plate-shaped ice crystals that cause sun dogs are also responsible for the colorful
circumzenithal arc
The circumzenithal arc, also called the circumzenith arc (CZA), upside-down rainbow, and the Bravais arc,"Mémoire sur les halos et les phénomènes optiques qui les accompagnent", J. de l' École Royale Polytechnique 31(18), 1-270, A. Bravais, ...
, meaning that these two types of halo tend to co-occur. The latter is often missed by viewers, since it is located more or less directly overhead. Another halo variety often seen together with sun dogs is the
22° halo
A 22° halo is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a halo with an apparent radius of approximately 22° around the Sun or Moon. When visible around the Moon, it is also known as a moon ring or winter halo. It forms as sunlight o ...
, which forms a ring at roughly the same angular distance from the sun as the sun dogs, thus appearing to interconnect them. As the Sun rises higher, the rays passing through the plate crystals are increasingly skewed from the horizontal plane, causing their angle of deviation to increase and the sun dogs to move farther from the 22° halo, while staying at the same elevation.
It is possible to predict the forms of sun dogs as would be seen on other planets and moons.
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
might have sun dogs formed by both water-ice and CO
2-ice. On the
gas giant
A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" ...
planets—
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...
,
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
,
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
, and
Neptune
Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
—other crystals form clouds of
ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...
,
methane
Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...
, and other substances that can produce halos with four or more sun dogs.
Terminology
A somewhat common misconception among the general public is to refer to any member of the ice
halo
Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to:
* Halo (optical phenomenon)
* Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head
HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Video games
* ''Halo'' (franch ...
family as a "sun dog" (especially the
22° halo
A 22° halo is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a halo with an apparent radius of approximately 22° around the Sun or Moon. When visible around the Moon, it is also known as a moon ring or winter halo. It forms as sunlight o ...
, being one of the most common varieties). However, sun dogs represent just one of many different types of halos. For referring to the atmospheric phenomenon in general, the term ''(ice crystal) halo(s)'' is more appropriate.
Etymology
The exact etymology of ''sun dog'' largely remains a mystery. The ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' says it is "of obscure origin".
In Abram Palmer's 1882 book ''Folk-etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions Or Words Perverted in Form Or Meaning, by False Derivation Or Mistaken Analogy'', sun-dogs are defined:
(''Dog'' in English as a verb can mean "hunt, track, or follow", so ''Dog the true
un' has meant ''track the true
un' since the 1510s.)
Alternatively, Jonas Persson suggested that out of
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...
and archaic names — da, solhunde (sun dog), no, solhund (sun dog), sv, solvarg (sun wolf) — in the Scandinavian languages, constellations of
two
2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and only even prime number. Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many cultur ...
wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...
hunting the Sun and the Moon, one after and one before, may be a possible origin for the term.
''Parhelion'' (plural ''parhelia'') comes from grc, παρήλιον (, 'beside the sun'; from (, 'beside') and (, 'sun')).
In the
Anglo-Cornish
The Cornish dialect (also known as Cornish English, Cornu-English, kw, Sowsnek Kernowek) is a dialect of English spoken in Cornwall by Cornish people. Dialectal English spoken in Cornwall is to some extent influenced by Cornish grammar, and o ...
dialect of
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, sun dogs are known as ''weather dogs'' (described as "a short segment of a rainbow seen on the horizon, foreshowing foul weather"). It is also known as ''a lagas in the sky'' which comes from the
Cornish language
Cornish (Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language, Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a List of revived languages, revived language, having become Extinct language, extinct as a livin ...
term for the sun dog meaning 'weather's eye' (, 'eye' and , 'weather/wind'). This is in turn related to the Anglo-Cornish term ''cock's eye'' for a halo round the sun or the moon, also a
portent of bad weather.
History
Greece
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
(''Meteorology'' III.2, 372a14) notes that "two mock suns rose with the sun and followed it all through the day until sunset." He says that "mock suns" are always to the side, never above or below, most commonly at sunrise or sunset, more rarely in the middle of the day.
The poet
Aratus
Aratus (; grc-gre, Ἄρατος ὁ Σολεύς; c. 315 BC/310 BC240) was a Greek didactic poet. His major extant work is his hexameter poem ''Phenomena'' ( grc-gre, Φαινόμενα, ''Phainómena'', "Appearances"; la, Phaenomena), the ...
(''Phaenomena'', lines 880–891) mentions parhelia as part of his catalogue of Weather Signs; according to him, they can indicate rain, wind, or an approaching storm.
Artemidorus in his ''Oneirocritica'' ('On the Interpretation of Dreams') included the mock suns amongst a list of celestial deities.
Rome
A passage in
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
's ''
On the Republic'' (54–51 BC) is one of many Roman authors who refer to sun dogs and similar phenomena:
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
makes an incidental reference to sun dogs in the first book of his ''
Naturales Quaestiones
''Naturales quaestiones'' (''Natural Questions'') is a Latin work of natural philosophy written by Seneca around 65 AD. It is not a systematic encyclopedia like the ''Naturalis Historia'' of Pliny the Elder, though with Pliny's work it represent ...
''.
The 2nd-century Roman writer and philosopher
Apuleius
Apuleius (; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day ...
in his ''Apologia'' says "What is the cause of the prismatic colours of the rainbow, or of the appearance in heaven of two rival images of the sun, with sundry other phenomena treated in a monumental volume by
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists ...
of Syracuse."
Jerusalem
Fulcher of Chartres Fulcher of Chartres (c. 1059 in or near Chartres – after 1128) was a priest who participated in the First Crusade. He served Baldwin I of Jerusalem for many years and wrote a Latin chronicle of the Crusade.
Life
Fulcher was born c. 1059. His app ...
, writing in Jerusalem in the early twelfth century, notes in his ''Historia Hierosolymitana'' (1127) that on February 23, 1106
Wars of the Roses
The prelude to the
Battle of Mortimer's Cross
The Battle of Mortimer's Cross was fought on 2 February 1461 near Kingsland, Herefordshire (between Leominster and Leintwardine, by the River Lugg), not far from the Welsh border. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing ...
in
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in 1461 is supposed to have involved the appearance of a halo display with three "suns". The
Yorkist
The House of York was a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet. Three of its members became kings of England in the late 15th century. The House of York descended in the male line from Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, t ...
commander, later
Edward IV of England
Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...
, convinced his initially frightened troops that it represented the three sons of the Duke of York, and Edward's troops won a decisive victory. The event was dramatized by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
in ''
King Henry VI, Part 3'', and by
Sharon Kay Penman
Sharon Kay Penman (August 13, 1945 – January 22, 2021) was an American historical novelist, published in the UK as Sharon Penman. She was best known for the Welsh Princes trilogy and the Plantagenet series. In addition, she wrote four medieval ...
in ''
The Sunne In Splendour
''The Sunne in Splendour'' is a historical novel written by Sharon Kay Penman. Penman became interested in the subject of Richard III while a student and wrote a manuscript that was stolen from her car. She rewrote the manuscript, which was pub ...
''.
Jakob Hutter
Another early clear description of sun dogs is by
Jacob Hutter
Jakob Hutter (also spelled Jacob Hutter, Huter or Hueter; c. 1500 – 25 February 1536) was a County of Tyrol, Tyrolean Anabaptists, Anabaptist leader and founder of the Hutterites.
Biography
Hutter was born in the small hamlet of Moos near ...
, who wrote in his ''Brotherly Faithfulness: Epistles from a Time of Persecution'':
The observation most likely occurred in
Auspitz (Hustopeče),
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The me ...
on 31 October 1533. The original was written in German and is from a letter originally sent in November 1533 from Auspitz in Moravia to the
Adige Valley
The Adige (; german: Etsch ; vec, Àdexe ; rm, Adisch ; lld, Adesc; la, Athesis; grc, Ἄθεσις, Áthesis, or , ''Átagis'') is the second-longest river in Italy, after the Po. It rises near the Reschen Pass in the Vinschgau in the pro ...
in
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous province
, image_skyline =
, image_alt ...
. The Kuntz Maurer and Michel Schuster mentioned in the letter left Hutter on the Thursday after the feast day of
Simon
Simon may refer to:
People
* Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon
* Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon
* Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...
and
Jude, which is 28 October. The Thursday after was 30 October. It is likely that the "two rainbows with their backs turned toward each other, almost touching" involved two further halo phenomena, possibly a
circumzenithal arc
The circumzenithal arc, also called the circumzenith arc (CZA), upside-down rainbow, and the Bravais arc,"Mémoire sur les halos et les phénomènes optiques qui les accompagnent", J. de l' École Royale Polytechnique 31(18), 1-270, A. Bravais, ...
(prone to co-occur with sun dogs) together with a partial
46° halo
A 46° halo is a rare atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a halo with an apparent radius of approximately 46° around the Sun. At solar elevations of 15–27°, 46° halos are often confused with the less rare and more colourful su ...
or
supralateral arc.
''Vädersolstavlan''
![Vädersoltavlan cropped](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/V%C3%A4dersoltavlan_cropped.JPG)
While mostly known and often quoted for being the oldest color depiction of the city of
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, ''
Vädersolstavlan
''Vädersolstavlan'' (; ) is an Oil painting, oil-on-panel painting depicting a Halo (optical phenomenon), halo display, an Atmosphere, atmospheric optical phenomenon, observed over Stockholm on 20 April 1535. It is named after the sun dogs ( sv ...
'' (
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
; "The Sundog Painting", literally "The Weather Sun Painting") is arguably also one of the oldest known depictions of a halo display, including a pair of sun dogs. For two hours in the morning of 20 April 1535, the skies over the city were filled with white circles and arcs crossing the sky, while additional suns (i.e., sun dogs) appeared around the sun. The phenomenon quickly resulted in rumours of an
omen of God's forthcoming revenge on King
Gustav Vasa
Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa noble family and later known as Gustav Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September 1560), was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560, previously self-recognised Protector of the Realm ('' Riksför ...
(1496–1560) for having introduced
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
during the 1520s and for being heavy-handed with his enemies allied with the Danish king.
Hoping to end speculations, the Chancellor and
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
scholar
Olaus Petri
Olof Persson, sometimes Petersson (6 January 1493 – 19 April 1552), better known under the Latin form of his name, Olaus Petri (or less commonly, Olavus Petri), was a clergyman, writer, judge, and major contributor to the Protestant Reformatio ...
(1493–1552) ordered a painting to be produced documenting the event. When confronted with the painting, the king, however, interpreted it as a conspiracy – the real sun of course being himself threatened by competing fake suns, one being Olaus Petri and the other the clergyman and scholar
Laurentius Andreae
Laurentius Andreae ( Swedish: Lars Andersson ) (c. 1470 – 14 April 1552) was a Swedish Lutheran clergyman and scholar who is acknowledged as one of his country's preeminent intellectual figures during the first half of the 16th century. In h ...
(1470–1552), both thus accused of treachery, but eventually escaping capital punishment. The original painting is lost, but a copy from the 1630s survives and can still be seen in the church
Storkyrkan
Storkyrkan (, ), also called Stockholms domkyrka (Stockholm Cathedral) and Sankt Nikolai kyrka (Church of Saint Nicholas), is the oldest church in Stockholm. Storkyrkan lies in the centre of Stockholm in Gamla stan, between Stockholm Palace and ...
in central Stockholm.
Rome, 1629 and 1630
A series of complex parhelia displays in Rome in 1629, and again in 1630, were described by
Christoph Scheiner
Christoph Scheiner SJ (25 July 1573 (or 1575) – 18 June 1650) was a Jesuit priest, physicist and astronomer in Ingolstadt.
Biography Augsburg/Dillingen: 1591–1605
Scheiner was born in Markt Wald near Mindelheim in Swabia, earlier markgrav ...
in his book ''Parhelia'', one of the earliest works on the subject. It had a profound effect, causing
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathem ...
to interrupt his metaphysical studies and led to his work of natural philosophy called ''
The World
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
''.
Gdańsk, 1661
On 20 February 1661 the people of
Gdańsk
Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...
witnessed
a complex halo display, described by Georg Fehlau in a pamphlet, the ''Sevenfold Sun Miracle'', and again the following year by
Johannes Hevelius
Johannes Hevelius
Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Some sources refer to Hevelius as German:
*
*
*
*
*of the Royal Society
* (in German also known as ''Hevel''; pl, Jan Heweliusz; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor ...
in his book, ''Mercurius in Sole visus Gedani''.
Saint Petersburg, 1790
On 18 June 1790 , in
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, observed a complex display of haloes and parhelia which included his
Lowitz arc
A Lowitz arc is an optical phenomenon that occurs in the atmosphere; specifically, it is a rare type of ice crystal halo that forms a luminous arc which extends inwards from a sun dog (parhelion) and may continue above or below the sun.
Histor ...
s.
Newfoundland, 1843
In 1843, winter in the British Colony of Newfoundland was referred to as the 'Winter of Three Suns' and was unusually cold with 15 days of temperatures between 3–10 degrees below zero.
Great Sioux War of 1876–77
"Part of the time we marched in the teeth of a biting storm of snow, and at every hour of the day the sun could be discerned sulking behind soft grey mists in company with rivals, known in the language of the plains as 'Sun-dogs', whose parahelic splendors warned the traveler of the approach of the ever-to-be-dreaded 'blizzard'."
Inner Mongolia, China, 14 February 2020
On 14 February 2020, the people of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region witnessed
a complex halo display, in which all five sun halos were linked to each other by rays, forming a circle among them.
See also
References
Further reading
*
External links
Sundogs – Parhelia Explanations and Images
Photo slideshow4 point Sun dog with complete 360 degree ring in Shubarkurduk, KazachstanRare sun halo appearsSDO Sundog Mystery– A phenomenon that occurred during the launch of the
Solar Dynamics Observatory
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a NASA mission which has been observing the Sun since 2010. Launched on 11 February 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star (LWS) program.
The goal of the LWS program is to develop the ...
* {{Cite APOD , title=Jumping Sundog video and explanation , date=8 November 2011 , access-date=16 May 2017
Atmospheric optical phenomena
Sun