Provided and copyright by: Cathy Schultz
Summary authors & editors: Cathy Schultz; Jim Foster
The photo above shows an un-retouched picture of a morning solar pil
lar, taken this past February, using a Sony 2.1 Cybershot camera. The image, opened and saved with Photoshop, has had no correction. The actual pillar was breathtaking - the tallest, brightest, and most colorful I have ever seen. It extends approximately 10 degrees above the eastern horizon. Pillars are primarily produced by light that's reflected from the undersides of hexagonal plate crystals, which are slightly tipped from verical. See also the Earth Science Picture of the Day for March 14, 2001.
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