Is it a sun-dog? Is it a parhelic? No, it's a 22° halo!

Between about 9 and 11 this morning, an eerie glowing ring appeared around the sun, and brought Wits (and Joburg) to a halt as they gazed upwards in wonder.

The 22º Halo in the sky over the Wits Physics and Biology buildings.
The physics department was disgorged onto the concourse to stare at the spectacle.
And the dangers of looking into the sun be damned.

'A 22° halo is a circle at 22° around the sun, or occasionally the moon. It forms as sunlight is refracted in hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. As the light beam passes through two sides of the prism, the angle of minimum deviation is almost 22°. This wavelength-dependent variation in refraction causes the inner edge of the circle to be reddish while the outer edge is bluish.'

- Wikipedia

Apparently, Venus was visible as a tiny red dot passing over the sun during the halo.
I couldn't see it, and a camera can only do so much, so here's a strelitzia passing in front of the sun instead.

Floating in the sky above the Biology and Oppenheimer Life-sciences buildings

Above the Wits Great Hall.

A classic halo shot.

This one gives you a true sense of how large and looming the halo was. Pretty cool to watch people when they first saw it - a moment of shock, a stumble to halt, and then wonder and wasted hours of ruined retinas.

Groot Constantia

A triptych of colours and light

Left to right:
1) Miniature ivy leaves in the late afternoon light at Emmarentia dam.
2) A solitary red reminder of autumn lit by a winter sunrise last week, next to the Architecture building at Wits.
3) Water droplets on rose leaves, mid-morning in the garden.

Patience

I've spent countless moments hunched over flowers waiting for an obliging bee to settle. More often than not, their stops are too fleeting, they disappear into the flower too quickly, or my movement scares them off, so shots like this are few and far between, and precious.

Leafy Light

A perfect example of the luminescent leaves I adore.

Central Park, June 2009.

A windmill and some flowers

A fleeing windmill and a fleeting field of flowers flying past outside the car window.

somewhere east of Cape Town, on the way to the dunes of De Hoop, the caves of Arniston and the clouds over Agulhas...

6 September 2009

For some subtle reason, this image elicits in me feelings of absolute calm and the memory of the fluid ebb and flow of the fields in the buffeting wind.

Ivy

Ivy at Emmarentia Dam, 21 February 2010

The light was clear and soft and the tiny ivy leaves lined up perfectly...

Be Prolific

I started this blog with very little more than curiosity, and I've found it a useful platform for whatever takes my fancy. While I have greatly enjoyed ranting to an empty room, I realised that I was not living up to the new name of my redesigned blog - that of a Prolific Photographer; and so, from now on, I'll be sharing my favourite or most interesting pictures - hopefully daily or as close to daily as I can maange, because otherwise they may never see the light of day.

Starting with this one, taken in Central Park, NYC in June last year. I delight in the effect of sunlight on leaves and therefore have way too many pictures like this.