Why, in the photo above, does Venus show rainbow-like colors? The reason is that Ilija caught Venus when it was low in the sky, where we’re looking at it through a greater thickness of Earth’s atmosphere than when Venus is viewed higher above the horizon. The atmosphere splits the Venus light (really, reflected sunlight) into this colorful array. Les Cowley of the great website Atmospheric Optics told us this morning:
Venus, and stars, close to the horizon certainly show prismatic colors from differential atmospheric refraction.
See:
https://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz783.htm
and
https://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz221.htm
Thanks, Les!
Bottom line: Maybe you didn’t realize Venus can appear as a crescent, much less in rainbow colors? These effects happen when Venus draws near its time of passing between us and the sun, which it will on June 3. You need a telescope (in the case of the crescent) and a camera (in the case of the rainbow colors) to capture them.
Read more about differential refraction.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2Wj7kd5
Why, in the photo above, does Venus show rainbow-like colors? The reason is that Ilija caught Venus when it was low in the sky, where we’re looking at it through a greater thickness of Earth’s atmosphere than when Venus is viewed higher above the horizon. The atmosphere splits the Venus light (really, reflected sunlight) into this colorful array. Les Cowley of the great website Atmospheric Optics told us this morning:
Venus, and stars, close to the horizon certainly show prismatic colors from differential atmospheric refraction.
See:
https://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz783.htm
and
https://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz221.htm
Thanks, Les!
Bottom line: Maybe you didn’t realize Venus can appear as a crescent, much less in rainbow colors? These effects happen when Venus draws near its time of passing between us and the sun, which it will on June 3. You need a telescope (in the case of the crescent) and a camera (in the case of the rainbow colors) to capture them.
Read more about differential refraction.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2Wj7kd5
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire