ph . Astronomy . Galleries . Atmospheric phenomena . Parhelia

The Sun (far left) and a parhelion (far right). Faintly visible as a reddish arc, curving upward and to the left of the sundog, is a section of the 22° halo around the Sun. Parhelia are also called "sundogs" and "mock suns".

Chris Stewart, who took the photo, writes: "Recently while driving into work I spotted sundogs (parhelia), which astonished me given that we have been suffereing from the heat. Sadly I was not in a position to take a photo.

"Last night on the way home, again I saw one (not two) and battled my way home through infuriating traffic to get to my camera in time ... I took a light reading off clouds to the side and locked that in to get the right exposure reading (clouds not directly illuminated approximate the meter's desire for 18% grey, so this works well). Of course the patch by the Sun is overexposed – the sundog is naturally much fainter. You can see it in the gap between the trees on the right side, an irridescent patch that was trying to turn into a 22-degree arc. At times one could glimpse the extension into the arc, but it came and went."

Keywords: Astronomy, atmospheric phenomena, astrophotography, parhelia, perhelion, sundog