The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow (APOD 29 May 2008)

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:10 pm

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

<<A fog bow is similar to a rainbow, but because of the very small size of water droplets that cause fog, smaller than 0.05 mm, the fog bow has no colors and appears white. Fogbows are sometimes called "white rainbows" or "cloudbows". Mariners sometimes call them "sea-dogs.">>
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Robert Louis Stevenson : _Treasure Island_
Chapter 1 : The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow

JohnD · Post by **JohnD** » Thu May 29, 2008 9:35 pm

I thought that the Wiki is wrong here.
A 'Sun dog' is a refracted/reflected image of the sun, seen by looking towards the sun when there are ice crystals in the sky. See Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dogs

A fog bow is seen, like a rainbow, looking away from the sun, so to a seaman would be a wholly different object. The OED does have three meanings:
1/ comon seal
2/ old sailor
3/ light near the horizon presaging bad weather.

While the last is an atmospheric object, I can't think that is describes a fogbow. THEN, I found this site, with an extraordinary collection of fogbows photos. The page linked to shows that the fogbow can thicken and be brighter nearest the water, simulating the sundog effect. So maybe those old sailors DID call them seadogs!
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/fogsea.htm

John

John