Interesting photo captured! Any ideas?

[Marie Nicholls]

Just captured this photo when popping outside. Any ideas on what I can see, some sort of optical effect?

[Michael Lerch]

imho:  its a segment of a parahelic circle. The high cirrus passing along the 22degree point from the sun with the right kind of aligned ice crystal produces what you captured. If the Whole sky was covered in the cirrus, you probably would see a complete parahelic circle. You have a good eye.

[Marie Nicholls]

Thanks Michael, that’s really interesting. I did wonder if it was something along those lines as I noticed the band of Cirrus going across. It was amazing to see!

[Hans Stocker]

Hello Mary, you spotted a very nice sundog. It is always red at the side where the suns is. The sun is at the right in your images and at ethe same height as the sundog. Like Michael suggested the sundog is situated at the parhelic circle about 22 degrees (or sometimes more) from the sun where the the parhelic circle would cross the 22 degrees halo. The 22 degrees hal is not there in the image, but a part of  the parhelic circle is visible at the right of the sundog.

In the end a very nice one to observe!
Hans

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