Dear Charlie,
I'll have to admit that until I photographed a Green Flash aka Green Ray
with my
trusty OM2s camera that I began to doubt that it actually existed.
Seeing is believing and I have Kodachrome 64 slides to prove it.
There may be a physiological component but the primary effect is due to
REFRACTION
It requires that the light from the sun goes through a sort of sandwich
of air of different
densities. Different densities of material (air in this case) have
different indices of refraction. Different colors of light
(wavelengths) are refracted to differing degrees depending on their
wavelength. So when the setting sun is observed at a horizon below or
equal to eye level (an ocean horizon is best best but it is often seen
over other horizons like the Congo River, distant buildings, etc.) one
sometimes sees some rays of light that are green or blue that are
refracted directly to your eye while the Red, Orange and Yellow are
refracted at some other angle. It works for cameras, too! Both film
and video. The longer the lenses give more detail with the narrower
angle of view.
I've seen the Green Flash Phenomenon a few times but I've only gotten
good photos
that first time with the Kodachrome 64 but I keep trying!
There are many good web sites with photos here are some links:
http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/index.html
http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/GFlinks.html
http://flzhgn.home.mindspring.com/grnray.htm
Sincerely,
Thomas "Hank" Hogan <hogant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Feel free to contact me off list about this at the e-mail address above
or http://flzhgn.home.mindspring.com/ which has a mailto: button
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