Explanation:
Gazing skyward on a sunny day in May,
photographer Jean-Marc Lecleire captured this
engaging display
of ice halos
forming complete circles in the sky.
Recorded with a fish-eye lens from a spot near
the grand
Château de Chambord in France,
the picture looks
straight up, spanning almost 180 degrees from
horizon to horizon.
Surrounding the Sun is a halo
formed by sunlight refracting through
hexagonal-shaped ice crystals in
high, thin clouds.
The halo is circular and exactly 22 degrees in radius,
but it looks squashed because of the
distortion
of the extremely wide-angle lens.
Surrounding the zenith (the point directly above the observer)
and always at the same altitude as the
Sun is a lovely
parhelic circle,
caused by sunlight
reflecting from ice crystals with nearly vertical faces.
On average more common than rainbows,
beautiful ice halos can often be seen in planet Earth's sky
by those who know
how to look
for them.
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