Saying Goodbye Sunrise
by Kathy Bassett
Title
Saying Goodbye Sunrise
Artist
Kathy Bassett
Medium
Photograph - Photography - Digital Fine Art
Description
A personal experience, but universal in the release, the process of losing dear ones and finding ways of significance and sacredness to let life move on with a ceremony of thankfulness for that one that has passed... as I did recently for my Dad in this particular area in a warm and thriving place.
Pure sunlight is white in color, containing a spectrum of colors from violet to red. When sunlight interacts with atmospheric particles much smaller than the wavelength of visible light, a phenomenon known as Rayleigh scattering occurs. In this process, light is scattered in various directions, with shorter wavelengths (violet, blue, and green) being scattered more strongly than longer ones (orange and red).Because of this effect, the Sun generally appears yellow when observed on Earth, since some of the shorter wavelengths are scattered into the surrounding sky. This also makes the sky appear increasingly blue farther away from the Sun. During sunrise and sunset, the longer path through the atmosphere results in the removal of even more violet and blue light from the direct rays, leaving weak intensities of orange to red light in the sky near the SunMie scattering by larger particlesThe intense reds and peach colors in brilliant sunrises come from Mie scattering by atmospheric dust and aerosols, like the water droplets that make up clouds. We only see these intense reds and peach colors at sunrise and sunset, because it takes the long pathlengths of sunrise and sunset through a lot of air for Rayleigh scattering to deplete the violets and blues from the direct rays. The remaining reddened sunlight can then be scattered by cloud droplets and other relatively large particles to light up the horizon red and orange. These larger particles, with sizes comparable to and longer than the wavelength of light, scatter light by mechanisms treated by the Mie theory.
Mie scattering does not depend heavily on wavelength, but it has the largest effect when an observer views the light directly (such as toward the Sun), rather than looking in other directions. Mie scattering is responsible for the light scattered by clouds, and also for the daytime halo of white light around the Sun (forward scattering of white light).
Without Mie scattering at sunset and sunrise, the sky along the horizon has only a dull-reddish appearance, while the rest of the sky remains mostly blue and sometimes green.Ash from volcanic eruptions, trapped within the troposphere, tends to mute sunset and sunrise colors, whereas volcanic ejecta lofted into the stratosphere (as thin clouds of tiny sulfuric acid droplets) can yield beautiful post-sunset colors called afterglows and pre-sunrise glows. A number of eruptions, including those of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 and Krakatoa in 1883, have produced sufficiently high stratospheric sulfuric acid clouds to yield remarkable sunset afterglows (and pre-sunrise glows) around the world. The high-altitude clouds serve to reflect strongly-reddened sunlight still striking the stratosphere after sunset down to the surface.Sunrise vs. Sunset colorsSunset colors are sometimes more brilliant than sunrise colors because evening air typically contains more large particles, such as clouds and smog, than morning air. These particles glow orange and red due to Mie scattering during sunsets and sunrises because they are illuminated with the longer wavelengths that remain after Rayleigh scattering.If the concentration of large particles is too high (such as during heavy smog), the color intensity and contrast is diminished and the lighting becomes more homogenous. When very few particles are present, the reddish light is more concentrated around the Sun and is not spread across and away from the horizon.
Uploaded
November 1st, 2013
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Viewed 301 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 03/13/2024 at 8:46 PM
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Comments (12)
Kathy Bassett
Thank you for including Saying Goodbye Sunrise on your feature page of Todays Best Art group! David!!
Kathy Bassett
Thank you for featuring Saying Goodbye Sunrise in your Waiting Room ART group, Darren!
Kathy Bassett
Thank you for the extra views with Saying Goodbye Sunrise in your Water Water and Water group, Darren!!
Kathy Bassett
Thank you Lesa! for including my Saying Goodbye Sunrise in your Wild and Crazy group as part of your home page features!!
Kathy Bassett
Thank you so much for featuring Saying Goodbye Sunrise in your Photography and Textures group, Darren!