Cloud iridescence

Iridescent clouds are pearly luminous cloud parts.

Monitoring and development

This phenomenon occurs mainly at the edges of optically located standing nearby clouds the sun (eg on Altocumulus clouds). It is caused by the diffraction of light rays at water droplets or ice crystals and thus one of the events, which are called Photo meteors.

The edges of the clouds show a purple, blue and green color. Very small water droplets give rise to iridescence. The small droplets produce very large wreaths with wide sections of the same color. Therefore have large areas of the cloud to the same color. The different colors of the iridescent cloud based on the different droplet size. Various sizes of droplets also produce different wreaths, so that the color is different despite the same distance from the Sun.