Sundog over the Hale Telescope, Palomar Mountain Observatory

These are images I took with an Iphone 3 while employed at the Palomar Observatory in March, 2011. One of theses photos lived for a month on the on the main web page here, in 2011.

http://www.spaceweathercenter.org/swop/SSI/1.html

A sundog(Parhelia) is an atmospheric phenomena in which sunlight streams through and is reflected from plate like hexagonal ice crystals in Cirrus clouds. Generally, they are two round "dogs" on each side of the sun at 22 Degrees apart.

This Parhelia is much rarer, and in Celtic Mythology, portended bad weather. That was certainly true in this case, as over the next two days, 18" of snow fell. It was an amazing, mesmerizing site over the dome, and I felt honored to be a witness to such beauty in nature.

Nobody but family have seen all these, just the first one.

Palomar Mountain Observatory is owned by CalTech, and is located in San Diego County, California. It is a Premier astronomical observatory, and was the largest telescope in existence for 60 years.. This "200 Inch" dome houses the Hale Telescope. The low metal buildings in front housed the Palomar Transient Interferometer, which was decommissioned that year. It consisted of three small telescopes that observed the sun. It is an amazing place to visit and is open 7 days a week.

http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/homepage.html

Enjoy!