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Details:
The light pillar developed shortly after sunset (on Mar. 18th). The next day's sunset revealed a bullseye solar corona at the horizon. The day after that while trying to spot Venus and the Moon together as they crossed the meridian noon-ish and using polarized sunglasses to darken the sky for better contrast of the pair, I noticed the solar corona again out of the corner of my eye and used the roof of the house to block the sun to take its picture. (I did spy Venus and the nearby 2-day old Moon in binoculars shortly after this but never saw them naked eye until after sunset.)
Sun coronas are caused by diffraction by small particles in the air: ice crystals, cloud droplets, plant pollen. The odd thing was that the air appeared completely clear of low-level dust or high-level clouds, with deep blue, cloudless skies reigning both days. Yet the one sunset had a brilliant corona and at the next sunset there was nothing.
#1: Light pillar at sunset
#2: Corona at next day's sunset
#3: Corona noon-ish the day after that
Photo data:
Panasonic GX8, 20mm (wide) and 100mm (tele), handheld
... Program semi-automatic mode
... dates: Mar 18, 19, 20, 2026
Photographer's website:
No URL provided.
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