I looked up during my lunch break and noticed a very large surprise in the sky….

A  22° Halo, also known as an ice halo, or solar halo, or just a halo. Whatever you call it, the sight is still special to behold with the slight grayness trapped within, and the rainbow tint on the outer edge. Such was hard to capture with my phone and bright, direct sun.

That is, according to this excerpt from Wikipedia:

“A 22° halo is an optical phenomenon that belongs to the family of ice crystal halos, in the form of a ring with a radius of approximately 22° around the Sun or Moon (in which case it is also called a moon ring or winter halo). It forms as the sun- or moonlight is refracted in millions of hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. The halo is large; the radius is roughly the size of an outstretched hand at arm’s length. A 22° halo may be visible on as many as 100 days per year—much more frequently than rainbows.”

This phenom is the second one witnessed in my life which I have blogged about back in 2015. This time, being the first I have seen this directly above and uninterrupted by nearby structures. Such was a glorious, welcome surprise for an otherwise routine day.

– Orion T