APOD: Unusual Red Glow Over Minnesota (2009 Feb 17)

[stanthemanchan]

I think the effect is caused by the sunlight reflecting off a body of water. The reflected rays are then shining up through the clouds and into the airplane window. That is also the cause of the sharper delineation of light in the cloud as that is depicting the edge of the body of water that is reflecting the light.

[RJN]

FYI, I just heard from the photographer, Tyler Blessing, and he found a mistake which I just fixed. I don't think this mistake is important to figuring out this mystery. Tyler says that the plane was ascending after takeoff, not descending, when the image was taken. Tyler is following this dialog, and I happen to know that he has one more image of this phenomenon that might be of use! - RJN

[ghellquist]

Hi. New to this forum but an old reader of APOD.

I have done quite a few hours of piloting in this kind of weather in small planes. This looks exactly like a wet day, low transparent sheets of clouds, lighted by a setting sun. The rays of the sun reach the clouds but not the ground. Nothing unusual at all. Sorry.

Small note: we see the ground clearly, no headlights on the motorway --> conclusion that it was not a long time after sunset.

Gunnar Hellquist
Stockholm, Sweden

[X-Rayer]

Good point TRL and others of the auto focus beam faith.

As I looked at the picture something was eerily familliar abut that color. One of the earlier posters mentioned the photo was taken with an S-100, a canon camera. I picked up my canon a-70 pointed at my comp screen and pressed the button half way in autofocus mode and bathed everything in orange light from the auto focus beam precisely the same shade as in the pic. I believe it is reflection from the window as there is a concentration point of light emission. Looking at an s-100 the autofocus light emitter is placed above and slightly right of the lens.

The sun does seem to have set as seen from those on the ground and those in the airlplane as well. The sun would have to be up high enough to reflect off the surface of Strunks Lake to produce the light. The sun would thus be illuminating much of the ground and structures, and this does not seem to be the case.

I have an old Cannon Powershot and the LED on that thing produces a red-orange light much the same color as what is seen in the photograph.

[Chris Peterson]

I have done quite a few hours of piloting in this kind of weather in small planes. This looks exactly like a wet day, low transparent sheets of clouds, lighted by a setting sun. The rays of the sun reach the clouds but not the ground. Nothing unusual at all. Sorry.

I agree. I've also seen orange sunset glow scattered/reflected/refracted from virga, both with the Sun at my back and with the virga between the Sun and me. The time, ground lighting, and direction of the shot all make perfect sense as well. I can't find anything in the image that argues against this explanation, which is also the simplest.

[X-Rayer]

Hey Asterisk*/APOD folks.

Some pretty interesting guesses....

But I do have a question re: these types of images - that is the type of image that gets APOD readers throwing guesses out there as to causes for things seen in images. Is there ever a definite answer/follow up to the questions posed by these images? I know there was a recent image that featured light pillars over Latvia, and it generated a lot of great discussion, but was there ever resolution? An answer as to what caused the pillars? I guess what I'm getting at is do we, or will we ever find out what the definite answer is to the question(s) raised by these images? Or is this all purely for the sake of discussion? (Which is fine, I learn lots that way too. But I'd like to kinda close the loop on understanding what I'm seeing in these sorts of images. If possible.)

Just curious.....

Ditto...

[Chris Peterson]

I have an old Cannon Powershot and the LED on that thing produces a red-orange light much the same color as what is seen in the photograph.

Does it fire this light when the flash isn't on? I don't think I've seen any cameras (including my own Powershot) that use the autofocus assist light under conditions where they don't fire the flash. I guess it might if the flash was deliberately disabled.

Anyway, this was a bright scene- I doubt the camera would use the assist light.

[TRL]

Good point TRL and others of the auto focus beam faith.

As I looked at the picture something was eerily familliar abut that color. One of the earlier posters mentioned the photo was taken with an S-100, a canon camera. I picked up my canon a-70 pointed at my comp screen and pressed the button half way in autofocus mode and bathed everything in orange light from the auto focus beam precisely the same shade as in the pic. I believe it is reflection from the window as there is a concentration point of light emission. Looking at an s-100 the autofocus light emitter is placed above and slightly right of the lens.

The sun does seem to have set as seen from those on the ground and those in the airlplane as well. The sun would have to be up high enough to reflect off the surface of Strunks Lake to produce the light. The sun would thus be illuminating much of the ground and structures, and this does not seem to be the case.

I have an old Cannon Powershot and the LED on that thing produces a red-orange light much the same color as what is seen in the photograph.

Browsing through some of my photos I discovered a similar phenom photo I took in sept /08 I still think the focuser contributed but perhaps they were ascending through what I also photographed and the sun was below the horizon from my vantage point.

[Mack Frost]

While I am not a pilot, or have the opportunity for much flying, I am a photographer, an observer of weather conditions and an amateur astronomer. I live in Cody, WY, and although our area is fairly mountainous, the general landscape to the west of us is relatively flat, especially to the southwest in Idaho. This creates conditions very similar to those shown in the photograph, and I have made a long and informal study of how sunsets occur in our area.

While the sun may have set at ground level, it is quite obviously still shining on the cloud glow, which I agree has to be either light rain or virga. Also, the atmosphere itself, under the right conditions, tends to bend the light of the setting sun at such low angles, so that it can still "shine" on high clouds even though the sun is physically below the horizon, thus extending the time a sunset will actually last. However, given the intensity and color of the glow on the virga in the image, I am certain that it is still receiving direct sunlight, not a reflection. That, and the clue of other clouds colored with sunset light reflecting in the lake just to the upper right of the red glow proves conclusively to me that this image is a most unusual point of view of a fairly typical rain shower caught in sunset light. Kudos to the photographer for catching the beautiful sight before his angle of view was ruined by the plane's motion, and having a camera ready to take the photo. F/8 and Be There!!!

[X-Rayer]

Good question Chris.

I have an old Cannon Powershot and the LED on that thing produces a red-orange light much the same color as what is seen in the photograph.

Does it fire this light when the flash isn't on? I don't think I've seen any cameras (including my own Powershot) that use the autofocus assist light under conditions where they don't fire the flash. I guess it might if the flash was deliberately disabled.

Anyway, this was a bright scene- I doubt the camera would use the assist light.

The old Powershot that I have uses the LED to autofocus regardless of whether the flash is on/enabled or off/disabled.

[X-Rayer]

Hey TRL.

Unless you were photographing that pretty view of the sun illuminating the underside of clouds with a piece of glass or other reflecting material or fog in front of your lens, I doubt very much that any sort of auto focusing beam contributed to the color or realism of that picture.

[CuDubh]

Beautiful sunset. We're (except the pilots/frequent fliers?) just not used to looking DOWN on sunsets. I once descended into a sunset and it was unforgettable The broken cloudtops were almost black and the undersides of the clouds (seen through the numerous gaps), formed a network of brilliant red and orange, like the cracks in flowing lava. Similar to this photo but more intense and spread over a much larger region.

The only (slight) mystery to me is the brighter spot in the center of the cloud. It might just be a bit of cloud that is lower and thus more directly illuminated by sunlight. Or maybe it is due to some optical scattering phenomenon.

[Stone60]

In support of a sunset lit cloud or precipitation, take a look at the reflection in the lake at the right edge of the cloud. The reflection suggests grey and red clouds indicating that there was a cloud layer or altitude that was illuminated by a sunset.

[Orit]

In 1999 during my flight training, we flew from Denver, Colorado to Boulder. I did come across that kind of red glow and my instructor took advantage of the opportunity to teach me the following:
This is "virgo" (= light rain coming down a cloud, but not reaching the ground because of rapid evaporation) and looks like a transparent vail or curtain. When looked at it at sunset it glows red-ish and seems to be on fire.
BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL and quite rare.

[fogline]

I have landed in near-fog conditions when beautiful fog formed by the compression of micro droplets in the air flowing under the wing seemed to waft into visibility and spin off continuously into the air we had just left. Could the plane be contributing to a fog-cloud trailing the plane, which appears larger because of it's proximity to the plane?

Otherwise, there could be fast moving thin fog-like vertical clouds in some condition between fog and rain, in addition to the thicker background clouds. This mixed cloud condition is hinted at in the reflection in the lake, which because of the reflection angle is obviously not showing the foreground cloud but another just like it far in the distance. The sunlight reflecting off the many lakes in the area could be doubling the effect of the lit cloud, which could be very bright from the multiple angles and multiple exposure.

[boxer8545]

How about that:
the red hue is the reflection of a flashig red light on the plane (although usually the strobe lights are white……but who knows??), and the 'reflection on the lake surface' might be a part of the cloud mass…..

boxer8545
Berlin,GER

[mary.osterman]

Could this possibly be a pocket of methane created by the horse racing track below. The light could be bouncing off it or through it.

[GliderPilot]

I'm a flight instructor in gliders and airplanes. I see a simple sunset-illuminated cloud, photographed from above. It doesn't look much like virga to me, as I would expect to see a denser rain-producing cloud above the virga. I have seen clouds dissipate before the rain/virga, leaving the virga behind, but I don't see anything in the photo that needs that explanation. The cloud appears thin (in the sense of being not vertically tall) as well as thin (in the sense of being not dense) so the sunset lighting from below makes the illumination very uniform.

[dzach]

How about that:
the red hue is the reflection of a flashig red light on the plane (although usually the strobe lights are white……but who knows??), and the 'reflection on the lake surface' might be a part of the cloud mass…..

boxer8545
Berlin,GER

Boxer, I tend to agree with you (please see my earlier posts). If the given time and date are indeed correct (big if), the glow outside the window CANNOT be reflected DIRECT sunlight. The sun set around 7:08 PM Central Daylight Time. The plane is too low (on landing approach) to catch direct sun rays an hour after sunset on the land surface. The red hue on the lake in the upper right may indeed be a reflection of cirrus clouds (ice crystal clouds about 25K to 40K feet altitude) catching the twilight sun rays at that altitude.

Although I favor the flashing red light hypothesis, I'm not totally convinced. I would like to know on what side of the aircraft the photographer was sitting (port or starboard), if he took the shot looking back, forward, or laterally, and if there is any magnification of the image. I have seen similar strobe light effects flying near clouds before. The camera's light settings may have been cued into the the ground which is in the shadows, thereby exaggerating the brightness of the glow outside the window. For location of various strobe lights on the plane, see http://www.whelen.com/aviation/catalog/ ... ystems.pdf .

[Harry FiveEagles]

It is wonderful to note that Flying Cloud Drive is the road in the background of this photograph.

[TRL]

Hey TRL.

Unless you were photographing that pretty view of the sun illuminating the underside of clouds with a piece of glass or other reflecting material or fog in front of your lens, I doubt very much that any sort of auto focusing beam contributed to the color or realism of that picture.

In the post above with my photo the referal to the focuser beam was related to Mr. Blessings photo not mine. I have a pre sunrise photo that blows my other one away. I had to crop down the image of the sunset I posted due to the 256kb limit on attachments. It takes away from it considerably.

[jackjagt]

The sun has mostly set and only the redest rays remain to illuminate the moisture in the air, giving the beautifull effect but no mystery.

[cbsimkins]

Depending upon where the photographer was sitting in the airplane, it appears to be condensation trails which are usually not visible because they are strictly local to the airfoils, in this case the wing or engines. That coupled with the setting sun provided the illusion. I can see no connection with the ground as the glow will obscure any connection if it did exist. But the local condensation is something which I have observed in particular situations when watching aircraft in which I was traveling as they went through a cloud layer or near condensation point.

[Ody]

Hi Ya,

I think the red glow picture is all a hoax. I don't know about you good folk in the USA, but here in Australia we do not "...When landing ... ascended above cloud level". Albeit we are on the other side of the world and everything is upside down, when landing we descend below cloud level.

On another, more serious note, I also note that quite a few of the suggested solutions involve a reflection in the window - reflections of sunsets, red eye reduction lights on the camera etc. However, that hypothesis ignores the fact that the description states '...Tyler Blessing saw and photographed "huge curved sheets of glowing light extending from cloud to ground..."' clearly indicating that he could see the glow prior to, and probably precipitating, use of the camera. Given he was sitting near the window(assumed by the fact that there is no window surrounds from within the aeroplane), I would suggest that he was well and truly able to differentiate between a reflection on the window and a light source emanating from a source well outside of the aeroplane. A window reflection would not have caused the photographer to get the camera out and take a picture.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers.

[tylerblessing]

As the photographer of the image in question, I am finding this forum discussion quite fascinating, and I hope it continues. Here is some additional information that might be useful.

As RJN noted, the original caption of the image incorrectly stated that the plane was descending to land, but has been corrected to state that it was ascending shortly after takeoff.

The sun had not quite set; those that have examined the EXIF data might take note that the camera was likely set to EDT as I was returning from Michigan. I have pictures starting 17 minutes later in this series of the beginning of actual sunset (from perhaps 30000 ft or so).

I was looking towards the sunset out of a starboard window.

I have no specific recollection as to as the specific configuration of window shades and seats on the port side of the craft.

I seem to recall the aircraft to be a B737 or the Airbus equivalent. It was a northwest airlines flight.

To those who seem obliged to propose the most unique hypotheses I offer this suggestion: try not to cut yourself on Occam's razor!