Strong rainbow

[wlbragg]

I took this picture the other day after a strong thunderstorm passed through the area. It was the strongest rainbow I have ever seen (as far as I can remember).

[Thorsten]

Nice one!

[wkitty42]

it is also a double rainbow and if you were able to look closer, you might have even seen a triple, depending on the light angle, of course

very nice photo, too

[Thorsten]

I don't think there is a third...

For a long time I was under the impression there could be and kept looking for it, but after finally going through the derivation of the reflection conditions, it turns out there are just two solutions.

The best one I've ever seen was at sunset in very red-orange light - it then gets incomplete, only the red bands show (the FG one does this as well...)

[bugman]

It's a nice photo! The colour reversal in the two rainbows is quite obvious in this shot I also know that there's only two as well (from theory and testing with a garden hose). However if you do look hard enough, you might see the leprechaun and his gold

Regards,
Edward

[wlbragg]

Unfortunately I didn't have my better camera, all I had on me at the time was a tablet with a decent camera on it. This rainbow actually spanned the entire SE quadrant, from horizon to horizon. But I had no way to capture to entire event. Although that is not entirely true, I should have recorded it or at least taken a series of shots and then stitched it. It all happened pretty fast and I remember thinking, "if only I had my other camera", and that was that.

[Thorsten]

Family is used to me running frantically inside shouting 'Where is my camera???' when something interesting happens in the sky by now.

But I have a nice collection of sunsets, rainbows, halos, and even Aurora Borealis by now Still waiting to see noctilucent clouds one day... Originally I was after ALS reference material, but it's grown into a hobby of its own.

[Fritz]

Actually there can be at least 5 rainbows, two of them are around the sun and not opposite of it, and very difficult to see or to photograph. The 5th is between the 1st and the 2nd, but it's very weak. Perhaps it can be seen if the picture contrast is increased. See http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-el ... first-time

[bugman]

I thought only the first two of the infinite orders were visible to the human eye? Try it yourself in bright sunlight with a garden hose with a fine sprayer, looking back at the sun to try to see the higher order ones. I was never able to see them.

Regards,
Edward

[wkitty42]

all i know, and the only reason why i ever mention triple rainbows, is because i have actually seen them... it was back in the '80s when i was in steamboat springs colorado... some friends and i had been out at the park at the western end of town when we could see a storm coming up the valley... we decided to take our activities up the mountain beside the lake in that park... that lake reeks of sulfur and the ground is all spongy... made for a great place to play hacky-sack for hours on end so anyway, we jumped into our vehicles and rode up the gravel road to a curve with a wide area where we could park and look out over the valley without blocking any other traffic... we were above the storm clouds and just watched it raining below us... as the storm passed there appeared three rainbows, equally spaced and fading in brightness... these were all below us... i have wished so many times that i had had a camera to get that picture of them... i've never been in a place like that to try to see such again... maybe one day i'll make it back out there and possibly see similar again

edit: after having gone digging in google earth and google maps, i'm pretty sure the road we went up on was what is now called blackmer drive... all that area has really built up over the years... it was all forest when i was there and no houses... even the park there on 13th street has been built up from what it used to be... so anyway, going up blackmer drive, there's a large area at about 7200ft and another further along at 7400ft... from the first one, we could look back to our left and down and see the luge track as well as the ski jump that were built for the olympics trials or tryouts or some such... i don't know what year they were built and i probably watched that stuff on TV and never made the connection when i was actually there years later... friends there told me about it when we were out one day and climbed up the ""hill side"" to the top of the ski jump... anyway, ok... that's enough storytime for now