Santa Barbara Island is 40 miles away across the ocean, so I look out each clear day to see if it's up to something. The months from October into early Spring of each year are the clearest above this part of the Pacific Ocean.

Here are pictures of the island showing an inferior mirage and a weird-looking superior mirage too.

The first image was taken in November 2003 on a clear cold evening. Santa Barbara with an inferior mirage below it is unusual. The sky is reflected below the island at either end. This and all mirage pictures on this page are enlargements from the original images. (Pentax MX using a 135mm lens on Kodak Max 800 film. Click on these thumbnails for larger images.)

Then in late January 2004, superior-complex mirages of Santa Barbara were visible on a warmer day with high stratus clouds, clear lower atmosphere. Look at the flattop appearance of both the island's peaks in this picture taken through a 400mm lens. What appears to be a band of clouds above the island and going north is actually a distorted superior (inverted)  mirage of the sea's surface. (The same effect shows to either side of the island as a thin dark line in the November 16, 2002 image and the first picture taken on January 27, 2003.)

Betwixt and between these island apparitions I traveled to New Mexico. Driving across the Black Mountains in the south-central part of the state in transit to a hot springs vacation at Faywood, I was treated to a display of atmospheric halos, arcs, parhelic circles and a rare form of parhelion or sun dog. The day (Friday, November 28, 2003) was pleasant with high cirrostratus clouds. Mid-afternoon (3pm) looking west a 22-degree circle of light appeared in the clouds around the sun. It was tinged red on the inside. On top of the circle were the tangent arcs, one bending up to either side and both connected by an arc spanning the tops to the tangents. My brother pulled over and we looked and I took photos. A 28mm lens caught the sky scene, using an improvised occulting mask (my fist) to block the solar glare.

Just a few miles and a few minutes later I noticed a white band paralleling the horizon to the north. This was a partial parhelic circle. We could not pull over right away because the winding mountain road had no safe place to stop. When we were able to park, we were privileged to witness a very unusual sight. The bright circle in the cirrus had bright spots on it. One was seen at 120 degrees and another at 90 degrees from the sun. One of my shots with the 28mm lens prominently shows the 90-degree parhelion (sun dog) and adjoining sections of the parhelic circle.

These halos, arcs, circles and parhelia are all caused by ice crystals in the high atmosphere. Some of the same crystals formed the cirrus clouds covering large parts of the sky.

The 22-degree halo is formed by light refracting through hexagonal rod-like micro-crystals of ice. The sunlight is bent in the crystals just like it's bent in raindrops for a rainbow. The orientations of the crystals are random because they are so small they tumble in the air. Just as in the rainbow, there is the most light where the light is deflected least from its original path - the effect known as angle of minimum deviation. For the ice crystals, the angle is 22 degrees. Refraction also gives the halos the slight reddish tint on the sunward edge, an effect called dispersion.

The tangent arcs are formed by light refracting through the same hexagonally shaped crystal rods, but larger ones that don't tumble but fall and are most stable in a position with the long axis parallel to the ground. The way the light scatters depends on the sun's altitude, so tangent arcs can have various appearances.

The parhelic circle is caused by reflection of light off vertical faces of either the rod-shaped or flat, plate-shaped hexagons. Because it's reflection, there is no color in the circle

The sun dogs - parhelia - are also due to refraction of the light. This time it's the hexagonal ice plates falling face down (or up) that cause the light to appear where it does. Usually the angle is just larger than 22 degrees and these are the sun dogs most of us have seen around sunrise or sunset. Sometimes they are very colorful, showing a spectrum with red, again towards the sun.

All four phenomena are either common or not particularly unusual. However, we were lucky to see all four at the same time, also very lucky seeing the sun dogs at the very rare angles of 120 and 90 degrees. As far as I can tell, the picture of the 90-degree parhelion is unique.

We arrived at Faywood and the hot springs, enjoyed the waters and then stargazed, looking at the Orion vicinity until we got too cold, then either went back to the springs or turned in.

Saturday morning was clear and cold, probably about 20°F. The dawn was clear, frost was on most surfaces. The strong and hot sunlight at 5000 feet altitude felt as good as the fresh coffee. Looking south towards the Florida Mountains, something unusual was happening to the hills on the horizon. It was time for the desert mirage to come back into my life.

It was evident to the unaided eye, but we also had other optical firepower with us: binoculars, telescope and a telephoto lens. The first shot is what it looked like through the 135mm lens. (The width of all the 135mm shots in the Faywood series is approx. 6 degrees.) This was not a castle in the air but it was a viaduct of light! I mounted the camera to a 350mm f/5 telescope for the second image. The span was evaporating even as the Pentax was moved onto the scope, leaving just the piers. You can see power lines in the middle distance, maybe five miles away without any distortion. The shoulder of Red Mountain (right in the images) is heavily miraged: it is 25 miles from the camera. The most distant ridgeline (Tres Hermanas Mts.) is 40 miles away. Its sightline seems mostly above the strongest mirage effects. The last shot shows the atmosphere returning to a more normal state and the distant hills are much less distorted. The entire show lasted about 30 minutes.

These desert mirages are different than the usual ones most often seen, which are inferior mirages caused by a thin layer of warm air just above a surface. Here they are superior mirages, actually complex mirages that are mostly superior, with the biggest visual effects coming from hotter air well above the ground. You can see the inverted hills above the real hills. The strong New Mexico sunlight superheated the higher air quickly, while the cold surface (with its higher thermal inertia) and adjoining layers lagged behind. The inversion zone formed perfect construction materials for a fantastic skyway!

The show repeated early morning Sunday morning and I was ready. Here are ten pictures taken with the 135mm lens showing complex miraging: a combination of looming, superior and inferior mirages. The interval of observation was about an hour and it was over about two hours after sunrise.

Picture 1: Red Mt. shows inferior mirage to the left. The inversion laver is clearly visible across the image.

Picture 2: Black Mt. eastern slope (15 miles distance) looming pillar or if you prefer, a fata morgana.

Picture 3: The Red Mt. viaduct develops on the mountain's eastern slope.

Picture 4: The viaduct is nearly complete. Note the peculiar effects of the inversion on the ridge to the left in the picture.

In binoculars, inverted images of trucks could be seen driving an upside down Highway 180 about ten miles away on the flats below where the viaduct appeared.

Picture 5: Notch between Black and Red Mts.has radically changed shape. Tres Hermanas (leftmost three ridgeline peaks) is unaffected because it's above the inversion.

Picture 6: Panning west of Red Mt. for more mirages. Plenty of action - a complex of complex mirages!

Picture 7: Panning further west: note double pillar and deep pale notch. Textbook looming mirages.

The mirages disappear as the day warms and the miraging inversion dissipates.

Picture 8: Viaduct has collapsed.

Picture 9: Notch below Tres Hermanas is gone.

Picture 10: Double pillar and deep pale notch have vanished.

The classic inferior mirage of the desert can be seen in Death Valley - the quintessential desert of the Basin and Range country in the Western U.S. I travel there often. In March 2004 I visited Racetrack Playa. It is a flat pan of dry clay in the western part of the national park with unusual grooves and isolated rocks on its surface. The grooves are evidently gouged out of the surface by the rocks. The rocks move when the playa is wet and/or icy with high prevailing winds - winter storm conditions.

No one has actually seen the stones move. But the puzzle has been worked out by careful observations and records of the stones and grooves over the last few decades.

The playa itself is several miles long and more than a mile wide. My visit was in the late afternoon, about 330pm. Cloudless day, air temperature about 80, altitude about 3800 feet. Walking out across the dry lake, I took many pictures of the stones and tracks. When I looked north towards a solitary outcropping called the Grandstand, I saw the desert mirage. As a glassy mirror, it doubled the features below the horizontal middle of the field of view.