It is amazing what you miss if you forget to check directly upwards every once in a while. Like this display of halo phenomena caused by sunlight reflecting off and shining through ice crystals in Cirrus clouds, spotted by ‘Opal X’ over El Paso, Texas, US.

At the middle of Opal’s image is the zenith, which is the point directly upwards. Centred on this is the broad, white band of light around the sky known as a parhelic circle. This band of light forms along a circle that runs right around the sky at the level of the Sun. It is rare to see a parhelic circle appearing in a band as continuous as this.

While the parhelic circle is caused by sunlight reflecting off the vertical faces of ice crystals, the other optical effects here – two parhelia, or sun dogs, and a circumscribed halo – appear when the light shines through the crystals. Shaped like microscopic hexagonal columns and plates, these tiny crystals of ice refract the light to form the more colourful spots and arc of light.

In other words, keep looking up.