At the beginning of this winter season at a cold morning - dark outside - with a thin layer of hoarfrost on the inner side of the bus windows I've noticed that the light of the street lamps' light was not simply scattered on the windows, but having colorful corona around them. At that time I had no camera with me… All along the winter I was waiting for the same display each morning when some ice was on the bus windows, but for long weeks I haven't met with such spectacular phenomena again.This day was my day on 24th January. Very thin layer of frost was on the inner part of the windows, (with some frost ferns too by the corner of the window frame), mainly this layer was made of small uniform ice crystals made of frozen vapor droplets, we might call it an ice film, it was about 0,1 mm thin.All the lamps outside had a corona, no matter how far the lamp was.The street lamps with white light had the most beautiful color range, the orange colored light of sodium vapor lamps had a less distinct colors and they were a bit moved towards the reds. Not only the street lamps' corona was seen on the ice layer, but a much less spectacular corona around the reflection of the inner lamps of the bus too! At the part of the frost ferns pattern the corona became irregular in shape. When the lamp was near the window I could also see the bigger outer rings of the corona. Almost the same phenomena appears when simple water vapour is on the windows, but that one is really less poor in colors compared to the ice film corona.This was the first time when I could take photos of a corona produced by ice crystals. It's a pity, I could not take close-up photo of the ice layer itself (the bus was driving me to work so it was permanently moving).Photos are collected here: The only afterwork was some noise reduction and size reduction. It was totally dark outside, so the pics were taken with ISO200 - ISO400; aperture F4 - F5,6; exp. 1/15 - 1/25 sec. auto white balance; without tripod or any kind of help to avoid moving.I wonder if the same phenomena would appear if the outer side of the windows would have a layer of hoarfrost on it. It's only weather's turn to show it up!
Author: Monika Landy-Gyebnar, Veszprem, Hungary
4 comments:
Common effect for the glass-wearers when entering to a warm room from the cold environment. Intrestingly the plastic glass pronounces this effect much more than regular mineral glass.
Marko, it was not vapour, but ice that produced the corona, that's why it is special.
Yes, true. Otherwise the effect remains the same.
I think the interesting of this observation is the fact, that conronae which originated by ice crystals are possible. Many scintists take at a starting point that iridescence and coronae orginate alone from diffraction at water droplets. This observation makes clear that this like that is not.
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