From Wikipedia:

Sundogs are commonly made by the refraction of light from plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals in high and cold cirrus clouds or, during very cold weather, these ice crystals are called diamond dust, and drift in the air at low levels. These crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays passing through them with a minimum deflection of 22°. If the crystals are randomly oriented, a complete ring around the sun is seen — a halo. But often, as the crystals sink through the air, they become vertically aligned, so sunlight is refracted horizontally — in this case, sundogs are seen.

As the sun rises higher, the rays passing through the crystals are increasingly skewed from the horizontal plane. Their angle of deviation increases, and the sundogs move further from the sun.[4] However, they always stay at the same elevation as the sun.

Sundogs are red-colored at the side nearest the sun. Farther out the colors grade through oranges to blue. However, the colors overlap considerably and so are muted, never pure or saturated. The colors of the sundog finally merge into the white of the parhelic circle (if the latter is visible).

Tags:   CANADA CALGARY Glenmore Reservoir ALBERTA sky skies Clouds sunset Sunrise flickrAward flickrTravelAward Cloudscapes cloud wolken nuages World Trekker

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What a beautiful day it was for a big snowshoe! Although it started at -12° C, it soon warmed, and we ended the day at about +5 C. The warmth brought with it challenges, as it made the snow stick a bit to our snowshoes. But otherwise, it was a fine hike. The scenics on this outing are hard to beat... We walked around 11 km's return distance, gaining 1100 m's of elevation, taking 7 and a half hours to do so, and developing only a blister or two...

Tags:   mt Haffner Mount Haffner Kootenay National Park BC British Columbia CANADA Snow Snow shoe Snow Shoe Hike

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Some of the photos we took on the first day of our adventure to the Inuvik area. We started in Edmonton, known as "The Gateway to the North." Our flight had brief stopovers in Yellowknife and Norman Wells, but we still took those opportunities to take a peek at their airports. The flight terminated in Inuvik, and we did a little walkabout in town before turning in.

Tags:   Inuvik Normal Wells NWT Northwest Territories Canada Edmonton Canadian North YEG YZF YEV YVQ Yellowknife airport airplanes arctic

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We haven't been hiking for a couple of weeks. One weekend was appaulingly hot, and the other it rained. But today was perfect for strolling to the summits of the Rockies in Kananaskis Country west of Calgary. This stroll was very short, just under 6 km's return, but we managed to gain over 800 m's in elevation. Shortly, I'll post a set from the hike, so this is just an appetizer...

Tags:   365 alberta canada kananaskis hike scramble scrambling hiking trekking trek ramble amble laufen stonecrop mt baldy

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Some iPhone panos from a recent walk along the Bow River in Calgary. The Peace Bridge is a wonderful Calatrava Bridge, while at first controversial due to its cost ($25 million CDN), is now much beloved by Calgarians who have used it.

Tags:   Calatrava CALGARY ALBERTA CANADA bridge bruecke pont flickrAward flickrTravelAward GününEnİyisi, TheBestOfDay

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