I think these are the last of the random images, though I still have a collection of thematic pics from before the trip, but I’ve been involved in other things right now and have been neglecting my sworn duties to provide content that no one reads, so we’re gonna have this and be thankful. Right?
When down at the lake one day, not even sure which right now, I glanced up and realized that the conditions had provided for a distinct solar halo. These are semi-common, just often going unnoticed because what kind of idiot stares into the sun? They’re formed from high-altitude ice crystals, typically in cirrus clouds as seen here, somewhere between five and ten kilometers (16,000-32,000 feet – rough conversion for convenience, don’t waste your time.) They’re often called 22° halos because that’s how wide they span, refracting through the ice much like rainbows do, with one principle difference: rainbows appear opposite the sun, since the light reflects from the curved back surface of the water drops after passing through, and gets refracted on the way back out, while sun halos surround the sun (from our perspective, anyway) because of ice crystals that allow the light to pass through them while still refracting it into a prism. This becomes a little more obvious with some tweaking.
Boosting contrast hugely brings out the colors that I could see faintly but washed out in the initial exposure settings. It also brought out some prismatic colors from the spikes around the sun itself, but I feel confident saying this was a lens effect rather than atmospheric, possibly even meaning I was due for a lens cleaning.
This is a simple example, and the more common types are sundogs, which can be spotted often. But such halo effects can be pretty elaborate in the right conditions.