On May 1st 2011 cumulonimbus clouds precipitating hail were commmon. These clouds exhibited clear praecipitatio and later in the evening they featured prominent virga. In these virga a sun pillar formed and as the sun descended behing stratocumulus a double sun effect was seen. A series of images is provided to see the progression of the effect. The real sun can be seen descending behing the stratocumulus.
The first observation of this effect was by Giovanni Cassini in 1693 (see e.g. Riikonen 2011 (1)). By clicking the above image a larger version can be seen. A full image gallery is available online (2). Marko Riikonen also captured images from the other side of the lake (3).
