Weird rainbow like sky

vulcan57

Took this picture over Galway city yesterday evening. Never seen such an odd phenomena before. Looks like it should be a rainbow but has got "defused" or something in the clouds. Taken at 18.42.

maquiladora

That looks more like a sun dog than a rainbow.

Lumi

Definitely a sundog - beautifully captured as well

'Sundogs, also called Parhelia or Mock Suns are most easily seen when the sun is low.
They are red coloured towards the sun and sometimes have greens and blues beyond (Red light is refracted less strongly than blue and so the inner, sunward, edges of sundogs are red in colour ).
Sundogs can be blindingly bright, at other times they appear as a coloured smudge on the sky.'

Some more images here

vulcan57

Lumi wrote: »

Definitely a sundog - beautifully captured as well

'Sundogs, also called Parhelia or Mock Suns are most easily seen when the sun is low.
They are red coloured towards the sun and sometimes have greens and blues beyond (Red light is refracted less strongly than blue and so the inner, sunward, edges of sundogs are red in colour ).
Sundogs can be blindingly bright, at other times they appear as a coloured smudge on the sky.'

Some more images here

Never heard of a Sundog before, that's a new one on me. I looked it up but it seems as though you should be looking towards the sun? This was taken facing away from the sun, ESE in fact. Would it still be a sundog?

Popoutman

ESE points to it being one leg of a rainbow. The dark horizonatal bank mid-pic is most likely due to no sunlight, due to a shadow from another cloud. The first order reflection not being seen is what points to the band being a shadow.

There are hints of a supernumerary bow to the left on the inside of the main coloured patch, and it's possible to see the extension upwards and slightly left of the main colour patch towards the top of the picture, especially if you push the saturation of the pic.

Normal rainbow, slightly unusual lighting conditions.

waterways

yep, the antisolar point was to the left of the image, here is a photo of a similar optical phenomenon.