White sundog… At 90 or so degrees from sun?

[Brian Roberts]

My wife and I saw something odd today. We could presume it was a bright white sundog, however this was at least 90 degrees from the Sun, at 3:30 in the afternoon. Walking the dog in sunny blue skies rural lancashire with only aeroplane vapour trails in the sky.
Any clues as to what this is?

[Mike Rubin]

Okidoki why did my reply vanish when I tried to edit it? How irritating… Let’s start again! Removing the links this time as they seem to be the culprit. Just cut and paste into a new browser tab / window. Edit: Oh they are showing as links after all. (People: Do not use the link button when posting. It appears to be broken…)

This sounds like a 120 degree parhelion to me. Please find a description at Atmospheric Optics here:
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/120pars.htm

There are also some pictures here. The lower one is mine, taken while walking the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem in March 2007 (near the Damascus Gate) as a bank of cirrostratus passed in front of the sun:
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz137.htm

More pictures of mine can be found on my website (scroll down to March):
http://www.flybywire.org.uk/pictures/weather2007.html

Cheers.

-Mike

[Brian Roberts]

Thanks for the update, never noticed one before so its good to know its name :-) never new they could be so blindingly bright.

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