Beauty Above
UPDATE: Thanks for all your responses! After hearing from everyone from fellow fotogs to meteorologists… we’ve concluded this is a prime example of a Circumhorizontal Arc. Wikipedia explains it’s an ice-halo formed by plate shaped ice crystals in high level cirrus clouds. Apparently, a circumhorizontal arc can sometimes be an indicator of an earthquake in the very near future… one was seen just minutes before the Sichuan earthquake in Central China in 2008: Earthquake Lights.
———————————————————
A couple of days ago, Esther Havens and I were working in Gondar in Northern Ethiopia… we got out of the car and looked up to see
this incredible cloud structure overhead…
Time stood still as we sat there with eyes fixed upward, watching this irridescent orb slowly transform from one beauty to the next and
I remain in awe at this display of the mystique of His Splendor.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
Psalm Nineteen
Love these amazing photos! Thank you so much for sharing! I think they are Earthquake Lights (http://www.jimonlight.com/2010/01/16/the-phenomenon-of-earthquake-lights/)
I checked my copy of The Cloud Collector’s Handbook (I know… the geekdom totally eliminates any cool points), and it looks like something called Iridescence. It happens when sun passes through thin clouds containing droplets or ice crystals, which refract the sun in all kinds of crazy way.
Beautiful + cool + worth 20 cloud collector points
lol!
I saw your post on facebook (i’m a friend of Esther’s, but really, who isn’t?!). I agree with Erin, I think they are Iridescence cloud formation. Check out these other examples on The Cloud Appreciation Society website: http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/collecting/example/iridescence/
I heart clouds
I’m scared!
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/do-strange-clouds-associated-with-recent-chinese-earthquakes-offer-photo-evidence-of-haarp-attacks/
I don’t know. What you have here doesn’t look anything like the examples on Wikipedia, and it doesn’t really look like the stuff in China, either. I wish we knew more about this.
Praise His works and His Name! Thank you for sharing what He graced your eyes to see! He was pleased to share and pleased to be acknowledged as the source. You have made me smile today. My daughter shared this with us – a true gift of God.