Ice Crystal Halos

Having kept a keen eye on the weather for quite a while Marko Mikkilä and I finally managed to spent a few days (or, rather, nights) in Rovaniemi shooting halos. We observed several interesting displays the best of which featured…

Last friday I was on a first aid course in Köngäs and noticed on the snow surface a suspicious looking 22° degree halo. The lack of sharp inner edge reminded me of last winters snow surface odd radius displays. So…

Last night at the Ylläs ski resort a diamond dust developed. Here is one photo showing the display at about 14 degrees of negative lamp elevation. There seem to be no halos from column crystals. The sparse crystals on the…

Yet another photo of the 5/6 November night in Rovaniemi shows blue spot on the right. The diamond dust was often quite thick with no stars visible above, and in the lamp light it felt like being inside a crystal…

One of the advantages of bright spotlight is that you need not to go through the trouble of getting in Ilyushin IL-76 to have a good view of halos below horizon. In diamond dust, just place the light below the…

Here is one stage of a display on the night of 5/6 November in Rovaniemi. The sharp intensity gradient at the zenith marks the outer edge of sun pillar, that has been formed from triangular columns – if parallel light…

Here is another display from the first diamond dust night Rovaniemi. The crystals were rather small as I was close to the snow guns. There was also Moilanen arc, but in the photo it is overexposed.

The weather in Vecsés, Hungary was mostly grey on 12 November, therefore the display came rather unexpected. Low in the horizon, covering the place of the parhelia and most of the 22° halo there was a thick cloud which remained…

The diamond dust season began in Rovaniemi on the night of 1/2 November with three snow guns running in the ski jump. Here is one of the displays photographed that night. It is noteworthy that the crystals have cavities in…

After over a month of no halos I got bombarded by a serious halo series that started after I clocked out of work to go home, and before getting into the car I started firing away with my Nikon D-100.…