When the sunlight reaches the atmosphere, it’s dispersed and sometimes it’s separated in the component colors of water drops, ice crystals and dust particles in the air , causing a variety of optical illusions like:

Esential data

Rainbows, the fog springs occur through the refracted light in saturated water atmosphere.

The northern and southern lights appear on the polar sky and they are caused by loaded solar particles , which react with the atmosphere.

The intense heat can cause a mirage- optical illusions caused by the refracted light through the overheated air layers near the ground.

The raindrops refract the sunlight acting like a prism and they decompose the light in seven colors. Each color reappears with a slightly different angle, depending on the wavelength, causing separated color bands. Red (with the largest wavelength) is in outside of the rainbow, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and violet.

The higher the sun is, the flatter the rainbow is. A double rainbow appears when the light is reflected in the raindrops.

When the sunlight “hits” the drops in the fog, an almost colorless fogspring appears. The lackcolors are due to the fact that the “delicate” fogdrops don’t disperse the light as well as the big raindrops.

The global capital of the rainbows is Honolulu, in Hawaii. Thanks to the mountains of the opposite side of the wind, the dominant trade winds,

hot and damp, rise, creating clouds and daily rainfall. And so appear many rainbows.

These color shows can be seen at high latitudes and they are created by particles of solar wind, which enter in the superior side of the atmosphere and they are attracted to the poles of the magnetic field. When the particles go down in the spiral of the magnetic field’s lines, they “bombard” gas molecules , forcing them to imitate colored light.

Auroras

Solar effects

The halo. A circle of colored light, which appears around the Sun.

The parhelia(fake sun). On one side of the sun appears a lightstain. The halos and parhelias are caused by the refractory sunlight through the ice crystals from the atmosphere.

The corona. A light circle around the Sun caused by the refract through the water drops.

The irization. The light is separated in colored stains when it’s passing trough thin clouds.

Solar columns. Above the Sun appear discs and white columns caused by reflection and not by light refraction through ice crystals.

The aureola.The Sun near the horizon designs the big shadow of somebody who stays on a mountain peak on the clouds below. Sometimes the shadow is surrounded by colored strips as happens on the Brocken Mountain,Germany, where is called the Brocken Spectrum.

Crepuscular rays. Alternative light and dark rays that appear when the sunlight is divided by a cloud or a mountain.

When the sunlight is passing through layers of temperature and different densities, it’s refracted. On very hot surfaces, like a desert’s ground or an asphalted road, in the summer, the refracted light is up and so is producing a false image ( ex.: a canvas of water ) immediately above the ground. Alternate layers of cold and warm air can create complex mirages that seem like buildings surrounded by water. It’s called Fata Morgana, after the legend. Morgan le Fay, which is said that she lived in a castle under water. A famous Fata Morgana appears in Str. Messina, between Italy si Sicily.

Mirages

Optical effects