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Mountain Shadow

Mountain Shadow

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    • February 14, 2018 at 7:26 pm #258900
      Jurene Phaneuf avatarJurene Phaneuf
      Participant

      A young college friend claims this to be the shadow of a tall mountain to the west of us. Could it be? Mt. Rainier is about 200 miles due west southwest of us.IMG_2406

    • February 14, 2018 at 10:58 pm #258930
      Howard Brown avatarHoward Brown
      Participant

      First, a wonderful sunset shot, HilltopSpotter, thank you.

      Next I have no special knowledge of shadows, but some questions come to mind. I would have expected a mountain’s shadow at sunset to be the right way up e.g. triangular at the top – you might argue the right side of your picture shows this. 200 miles is a long way; but at this time of the year the sun would be setting WSW perhaps?

      The question arises whether the mountain’s reflection on cloud is indeed inverted; my geometry lets me down at this point. Any thoughts, anyone?

    • February 15, 2018 at 3:34 am #258964
      George Preoteasa avatarGeorge Preoteasa
      Participant

      This could be right. The top of the mountain shadow would be pointing towards the mountain top. Hope you enjoy my little schematic drawing :-)

      IMG-0215

    • February 15, 2018 at 3:40 am #258966
      Jurene Phaneuf avatarJurene Phaneuf
      Participant

      It is an intriguing puzzle. I will contact the student I mentioned. He has more photos like this one. I was simply capturing a lovely sunset and later noticed the inverted triangle. It will be interesting to hear others weigh in. Hygge and George, thanks for the thoughts. George, I had my own little schematic that was similar, but still confusing. Surely I’m not the first to ponder this . . .

    • February 15, 2018 at 12:09 pm #259023
      Hans Stocker avatarHans Stocker
      Participant

      Quite applicable alias you use for this topic Hilltopspotter.

      I am not sure where the sun and the mountain are on your picture. Two situations are possible.When the sun and mountain are behind you / the observer you can find via the next link what you can expect to see together with an explanation: Atoptics, mountain shadows.

      For the second case – when the sun is in front and we look at the sunset with a mountain behind the horizon like George shows in his drawing – I can’t find a clue on the internet or in my book about optical pheneomena, but I would expect the shadow of the mountain to diverge from the solar point, the same way crepescular rays diverge. I recently posted a picture with diverging shadows (in this case shadows from other clouds I suppose): Shadows Fall.

      This way it would be plausible to see the shadow seemingly upside down, but that is an optical illusion the same way crepescular rays seem to diverge and anticrepescular rays seem to converge.

      I am not sure, but I hope this makes sense and helps. Let us know whatever you figure out more.

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