Sun halo

It was a sunny afternoon in London and I looked up when I saw a plane flying overhead, as it was in the opposite direction from normal. As I was looking up I saw part of a "rainbow" of colours, and when I looked more closely I realised it was a halo around the sun.

I didn't have my camera with me, only my phone, so took a photo with that. I didn't realise until after that there was also a vapour trail across the photo.

The explanation :

A large ring or circle of light around the sun or moon is called a 22-degree halo. It is called this because the ring has a radius of approximately 22 degrees around the sun.

Halos are associated with high, thin cirrus clouds. These clouds contain millions of tiny ice crystals. The halos you see are caused by both refraction, or splitting of light, and also by reflection, or glints of light from these ice crystals. The crystals have to be oriented and positioned just so with respect to your eye, in order for the halo to appear.

See more on earthsky , also Wikipedia.

See my blog on sundogs.