Monday, July 12, 2010

A Cloud Top Green Flash

I went out tonight hoping to get a photo of the crescent Moon with the rapidly gathering line of planets in the west after sunset. Unfortunately, it is getting to the rainy season here and lots of clouds ixned that idea. However, I did not come back empty handed.

As the Sun was setting behind some clouds, I saw a very bright green flash from the top of the Sun. It lasted long enough for me to snap off a shot from my camera (which I had already set up and was taking a few sunset shots). I missed the brightest part of the flash, but caught the end. Unfortunately, the shot is a little overexposed as well...it looked a lot more green visually.


I admit I hadn't thought of this before, but when I got home I typed cloud top green flash into google and sure enough, quickly found out that this is a known phenomena. Guess you can see green flashes in a wider variety of conditions than I previously thought.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

2 comments:

OrbsCorbs said...

It was unknown to me. It's a cool picture. Looking into the sun should be a little overexposed.

hale-bopp said...

I COULD have gotten the exposure right, if I had more than a fraction of second to react!