Weird sky

This is my first post here...

I was driving home the other evening on a nice, rain-free sunny day when my son said "Dad, look at that rainbow!". I fluffed it off and said there wasn't a rainbow because it didn't rain all day. When I made a turn I could see what he saw, which is what is pictured below. The sun was nowhere near this. I'd say the sun was heading West, and this was kind of south-east. When I originally saw it, it had a blue-ish cast to the one edge, but by the time I pulled over & grabbed my camera, it was colored as shown.

Does anyone know what this is, or what caused it? I've never seen anything like this in 45 years.

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...and here was the bizarre sunset that evening as well...the weird rainbow thing was way to the left of the 1st pic shown below, no where near the sun.

No zoom

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I think that's called a sun dog. Ice crystals and sunshine...

Yep - looks like Sun Dogs. I think they happen when the sunlight is coming through high altitude ice crystals, and you often see them in pairs on both sides of the sun. Seems like I notice them more commonly in the cold winter months when the sun is lower in the sky (particularly near the end of day).

Wow, thanks guys!! I was really freaky, and it was a hot evening, probably still 85 degrees at the time of this shot. I'm glad I had my camera in the car!

Here's one from a few years ago. The image is called Sundog Road.

Ace and Deuce wrote in post #14960793
...and here was the bizarre sunset that evening as well...the weird rainbow thing was way to the left of the 1st pic shown below, no where near the sun.


Zoomed @ 250mm

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sunset 3 by Ace and Deuce (Friend for full access to stream), on Flickr

Looks like you might have gotten some mammatus clouds in there.

Nice shot, M_six!!

bdillon - I just looked those up and wow!!! There are definitely some odd cloud formations!

Hmm Im gonna vote contrails.

When looking at the original size image it appears to be the brightly lit edge of a cloud. It's way too big to be contrails. If it is mammatus it's the first time I've seen the leading edge of the cloud that they form in, edge on.

Very neat phenomenon and cool set. I have seen those formations before and wondered what the heck they were, too. This answered my question.

Mammatus are indeed very weird. Here's one completely engulfing Mt. Hood.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/37701636@N07/7​978529607/

Wow very similar to a photo I shot a few years back at Cape Hatteras. I call it Devil's Grip

Ice crystals and water droplets are capable of creating a myriad of sky phenomena. Here's a link to some good photos of parhelia (sun dogs) and paraselenae (moon dogs). This is one page from the "Atmospheric Optics site - (link at right of the linked page). You'll find lots of things you've never heard of, plus the physics explaination.

http://www.atoptics.co​.uk/halo/dogim0.htm

Enjoy!

Thanks for the comments & info guys!!! I saw another one tonight...

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