[NewCandle] Sichuan earthquake lights explained

[Horace Heffner]

On Jun 12, 2008, at 10:04 PM, Keith Nagel wrote:

> Hi Horace,
>
> If you look at the very end of the clip ( about 3:10 to the end )
> the upper right hand corner of the screen lightens noticably. The
> quake was recorded at ~2:30PM China Standard Time. So this phenomena
> was recorded at about 2PM. The sun looks high in the sky, and to
> the right of the frame. Does the direction of the color gradient
> match that sun position?

You are right, the color gradient does not support the premise that  
colors are due to a sun dog effect from a sun below the horizon.   
Based on the tree shadows on the rooftops late in the film it appears  
the sun is high overhead and to the back and possibly very slightly  
to the left of the camera position.  I somehow got the impression the  
film was taken in early morning, but see it clearly was not.  The  
color gradient looks right for a rainbow reflection however. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow

The colors look like they may be from a secondary reflection, or fire  
rainbow, and the sun angle might be right for that.   I see things  
like that in Alaska on occasion, possibly because we have ice in  
cirrus clouds often and usually have a low sun angle.   The brightest  
are sun dog effects, but we have double rainbows fairly often, which  
are very intense.

Best regards,

Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/