Inverted Bell Jar Sun
Taken by Helio C. Vital on May 29, 2016 @
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Camera Used: SONY DSC-HX300
Exposure Time: 1/2000
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO: 80
Date Taken: 2016:05:29 16:54:34
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Details:
As I was taking photos of the setting Sun, I noticed its image looked unusually deformed by intervening clouds. Despite its 5° altitude, its upper limb had stretched upwards, while its lower limb had flattened (second photo). Then as it further approached the horizon, I noticed its image became diamond-shaped (third photo), before turning into an inverted bell jar (first photo), amazingly resembling the figure of a pressure vessel of a nuclear reactor. Then a couple of minutes later, its top simply detached (last photo), allowing it to recover its normal appearance. What could have happened? I guess it was an atmospheric phenomenon, not very different from a sun pillar, produced by ice crystals in the intervening clouds, that behaved like prisms and mirrors, refracting and reflecting sunlight between their faces and scattering it along preferencial directions. Apparently, the Sun`s disc was elongated vertically, while also being stretched horizontally. Both effects combined in varying intensities, producing the different shapes that changed as the Sun set. The photos were taken with a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX300 camera between 19:51 and 19:55 UT and processed with PhotoScape to reduce glare.
Photographer's website:
http://https://www.flickr.com/photos/98669508@N03/
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