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I've just been getting a few great weather photos and lots of general questions on what has been happening in the sky so here's a few links to answer those.
The first thing a lot of people have been seeing from Thursday and again on Saturday (the 13th of May 2006) is a Halo or a Circumhorizontal arc. For a lot of people, if they don't look at the sky all that often, they are really taken by surprise at the magestic wonder up there.
Halos look like a big ring around the sun, while the circumhorizontal arc looks like a horizontal randomly placed rainbow. Both of these are caused by refraction (bending) of light from hexagonally shaped ice crystals.
Overnight look for the fragments of a comet in the eastern sky near the constellation Cygnus. This should be fun if you're a night owl or might want to look to the stars tonight. The next couple of mornings (through Monday morning) will have pieces of this comet around. More information can be found by using the links on the right.
As always, don't look directly at the sun when looking for optical effects. Anytime we have ice crystals going on either with cirrus or cirrostratus type of clouds you can expect some very awesome sights! Enjoy!
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman
