At lunch time today at The Body Holiday (the amazing St Lucia Spa Fitness & Wellness Vacation / Holiday destination) Andrew, Craig and I witnessed a High Sun Parhelic circle alternatively known as a Circular Halo
According to wikipedia it is formed by the refraction of sunlight through cloud suspended ice crystals rather than raindrops. I had my doubts about the ice crystals as the air temperature was in the 90s today and there was a distinct lack of wind, but thanks to the internet I have found a similar example from La Silla astronomical observatory in Chile on 27 January 1990.
Apparently, only arc sections are usually visible so there are very few pictures of the full circle. So we were very lucky that our 22 degree halo had the full effect of red on the inside and blue on the outside.
Check out the red and blue dot on a couple of the pictures. My guess is that they are Mercury and Venus. If there anybody out there who knows better please let me know.
22 degree Halo
If you have any more pictures please send them to me so that I can add them to this collection
Halo 2 - Le Sport
Halo St Lucia
Sun Halo with Planets as seen from Le Sport Body Holiday
That was something awe-inspiring and beautiful. Thanks for the tweet Louis! Andrew
Too bad we missed that exciting and interesting event, we were to busy in and didn’t get a view of this remarkable event.