Sun and Moon Halos, Easter, Aurora - another update from Halley

It seems like after several weeks of not much happening on this blog, suddenly there’s a flood of updates. I do want to share more pictures with you guys, and as some of the events I photographed refer to particular time of the year, I didn’t want to miss an opportunity!

Sun and Moon

A couple of weeks ago we’ve seen some brilliant Sun and Moon Halos. These are created by ice particles suspended in the atmosphere, either as the result of wind picking them up, or the cirrus cloud. If the ice crystals are of the right shape and there is sufficient amount of them, the light from the Sun refracts, creating a number of optical phenomena. The ones we’ve seen so far were:

22° Halo
46° Halo
Sun dogs (also called Parehlions)
Parhelic circle
Upper tangent arc
Circumzenithal arc
Sun and moon pillars

Similarly to how the Sun can create those phenomena, some of them can also be visible with the Moon – although they will be less conspicuous, as the moon light is significantly weaker than that of the Sun.

Other phenomena that we’ve seen included really cool moon rises. As Halley is located on a flat Ice Shelf, with nothing blocking the horizon, we can see the Moon as it’s touching the horizon at moon rise or moon set. If you add to it some stratified layers of cold air (each layer with a slightly different temperature), the moon rises are really unusual, with the moon’s shape quite distorted.

Easter

Although we generally don’t celebrate Easter the same way as a lot of people do (especially in my home country, Poland), a few of us sat down to make Easter Eggs. You can see the process, and the final product, in the pictures below!

Aurora

We have finally seen the first displays of Aurora Australis this season! I’ve been waiting to see them for a while now, and it’s only now that it gets dark enough to see them. We have been very lucky so far, as we’ve had a few very clear nights recently with some brilliant shows of Southern Lights. Enjoy!