Halo and Pyramid

  

Photographer: Aymen Ibrahem
Summary Author: Aymen Ibrahem, Jim Foster

The above photo shows an unpretentious 22 degree halo juxtaposed with Egypt’s Great Pyramid. It was taken on March 5, 2009. Whenever a halo is observed, the ice crystals responsible for its formation, in cirrus type clouds, must be more or less randomly oriented and shaped like six-sided pencils. Halo colors are typically not as vivid as rainbow coloration, and unlike rainbows the red band is on the inside – facing the Sun. The darkened central hole, the area inside of the halo, is analogous to Alexander’s dark band in rainbows – a region where sunlight is not readily scattered by simple refraction processes.