BROCKEN SPECTRE: Climber Arne Danielsen was scaling Sicily's Mount Etna in Sept. 2003 when he turned around and saw this ghostly apparition: (continued below)



"I have seen this many times from airplanes, but this was the first time I was able to see and photograph it from the ground!" he says. It's not really a ghost following Danielsen around. It's the Brocken Spectre--so named because of sightings on the Brocken, the highest peak of Germany's Harz Mountains.
Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains: "The Brocken Spectre appears when a low sun is behind the climber who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist." The colorful rings are glory--sunlight backscattered from tiny water droplets. And the ghostly figure? "It is no more than the shadow of the climber projected forward through the mist."
http://spaceweather.com

I have seen the Spectre of the Brocken many times on peaks, the large number likely due to the northern latitude (and resulting low angle of the sun) where I live. I have also seen the Spectre of the Brocken on a highpoint in the Lower 48. Early in the morning of July 12, 1999, as I was climbing up Oregon's Mount Hood, there was a wondrous Spectre at dawn that was quite memorable. Because the mountain is so high compared to the surrounding terrain, the Spectre was some distance from the peak.

Don't remember if I've seen this from mountains--I probably have--but I've seen lots of other celestial wonders over my 6 decades. These include lee or mountain wave clouds (many ranges, from Everest to the Manu'a Islands); entering fireballs from flights over Utah & W. of San Francisco; the green flash from California and Cape Matatula; the zodiacal light camped on Mt. Elbert & elsewhere; a lineup of 5 planets a year or so back (nothing untoward happened); and a variety of icebows, arcs, sundogs and other wonders of refraction off ice fog in the Arctic. Oh--and aurora, australis once, a faint one E. of Perth. The southern skies include such interesting items as the Magellanic Clouds; there is a way to find the S. Celestial Pole though there is no southern pole star. A space shuttle, the space station, and flashes reflected off Iridium. 2d-order rainbows (common enough); eye of a cyclone (Carnarvon); & probably other phenomena I've forgotten. Never seen a UFO, though.

Roger Williams, currently in Boulder, Colorado.

I saw a wonderful Spectre of the Brocken at dawn on the summit of the Grand Teton. I could spred my arms and watch my shadow engulf the valleys & villages of Idaho WHAT POWER!!

The air was filled with ice crystals this weekend in New England and parts of Canada where temperatures dipped far below zero C. It was a good time to look for icy sundogs, pillars of light and rings of light in the sky. Christopher Atkins of Farmington NY photographed this remarkable sundog on Jan. 9th:
Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley notes that "very cold weather can make diamond dust ice crystals close to the ground. These crystals produce bright sparkling halos on sunny days. Also," he adds, "low humidity polar air tends to be clear, allowing halos from high-level thin cirrus to be more easily seen."
More cold weather is coming to New England this week. So if you live there, or any place where it is very cold, pay attention to the sky.
"Diamond dust sometimes produces exceedingly rare halos. Look beyond the bright ones," encourages Cowley. "Are there halos for example twice as far from the sun as the bright sundogs? Are there halos elsewhere in the sky? You might spot the rarity."
http://spaceweather.com/

Spent part of two winters in Barrow, Alaska at a NOAA climatic change observatory. The sun set from late Nov. to late Jan.; but when it was up & the temperature was below -30F (-34.4C), often the case, we got ice fogs and amazing optical phenomena: dogs, arcs, circles, bows, you name it. Rime frost also formed on everything. When it was dark, we got some fine aurora; I've seen more from the train at night S. of Churchill, Manitoba.