On an early morning walk through Lincoln Park, Seattle, Washington, US, Mindi Katzman (Member 66,955) spotted anticrepuscular rays beneath a sky of Altocumulus and Stratocumulus clouds. These subtle beams are a back-to-front version of the more familiar crepuscular rays.

Crepuscular rays are beams of sunlight and shadow that seem to radiate from the Sun as its light shines around clouds. Haze in the low atmosphere reveals the paths of the beams and shadows through the sky.

To see anticrepuscular rays like Mindi’s, however, you must turn your back on the Sun. The rays appear to converge on the antisolar point directly opposite it. Though the beams are effectively parallel, they seem to meet because of perspective as they stretch across the sky into the distance.

Next time you spot crepuscular rays near sunset, look to the opposite horizon too. You may catch their quieter anticrepuscular cousins fading into the distance.