Arts and Life

Rainbows are optical illusions and meteorological phenomena that cause a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. They take the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch. More rarely, a secondary rainbow is seen, which is a second, fainter arc, outside the primary arc, with colours in the opposite order, that is, with violet on the outside and red on the inside. A rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours. Traditionally, however, the sequence is quantised. The most commonly cited and remembered sequence, in English, is Newton's sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. "Roy G. Biv" and "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain" are popular mnemonics. Rainbows can be caused by other forms of water than rain, including mist, spray, dew, fog, and ice. Moreover, rainbows can have shapes other than a bow (arc), including stripes, circles, or even flames

As I pulled the truck up next to one of my favorite trees I looked over my left shoulder and there sat the most vivid rainbow that I had ever seen. It appeared to me to be about 100 yards away or maybe even closer. I was unable to get a great shot at first. I couldn't get out of the truck with the camera because it was still raining fairly hard. I didn't want to get water on my lenses. The image below is my first shot of this rainbow. I can't remember whether it was taken in the truck or standing outside. Due to the low altitude of the setting sun the red color of this rainbow was more vivid than the other colors. Notice that the colors of the secondary rainbow are opposite in order of the primary rainbow colors with red appearing on the inside of the bow. Also notice that the sky inside of a rainbow is much brighter than the area outside.

This is a photo of the left flank of the rainbow. The rain had moved beyond the tree line at this point. These tall trees are on the southern bank of the Grand River as it runs to the east near Elam Bend.

The picture above is a close-up of the first photo. It shows the apparent close proximity of the right flank of the rainbow. That tree line is about 1500 feet away from me as measured on an aerial photo. I have never seen a rainbow this close before other than one created by artificial sources of water such as a garden hose or sprinkler. NOTE: No pot of gold was found as a result of this event.

Above is a fisheye lens view of the rainbow including the old tree near the road. The hill behind me put part of my surroundings in shadow. This was my first ever shot of a complete rainbow. No other camera or lens that I have ever owned was capable of taking such a shot where both flanks of the rainbow were seen all the way down to the ground. As an added attraction this was a double rainbow.

I moved closer to the tree with the fisheye lens for this composition above. The secondary rainbow is still there but is disappearing fairly quickly.

Source: missouriskies.org/