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  • Supernumerary rainbows

Supernumerary rainbows

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by Konstantinos Kourtidis, Demokritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece

A supernumerary rainbow is rather rare. It consists of several (in this image three) faint rainbows on the inner side of the primary rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are slightly detached and have pastel colour bands that do not fit the usual pattern.

The faint rainbows are caused by interference between rays of light following slightly different paths with slightly varying lengths within the raindrops. Some rays are in phase, reinforcing each other through constructive interference, creating a bright band; others are out of phase by up to half a wavelength, cancelling each other out through destructive interference, and creating a gap.

This image displays only the RED band of the original RGB image, making the supernumeraries clearly visible. The original RGB image can be viewed at http://imaggeo.egu.eu/view/2598/

Taken on 17 August 2014
Submitted on 02 September 2014


Categories

  • Atmospheric Sciences (758)

Location

  • Europe (3080)
  • Southern Europe (1310)
  • Greece (290)
  • Exact location (24.9876 E, 40.9427 N)

Tags

atmospheric optics, rainbow

Colour distribution

 


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4608 × 3456 px; image/jpeg; 570.8 KB
Camera: Nikon COOLPIX P510

Licence

Credit: Konstantinos Kourtidis (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)


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