Cloud Jellyfish
A few days ago, a friend sent me a wonderful link to some footage of jellyfish in Palau and I started thinking about how amazing it would be to actually get to see these creatures for myself. Oh, I mean I’ve seen lots of jellyfish… in aquariums, in countless nature films, but never in person. Eventually, as is often the case with unknown places and things, I began to wonder what it would be like to photograph them. Who knows, perhaps someday I will get the opportunity and have those incredible photos to share with you all! For now, I thought I’d showcase one of my favorite images and a very special memory of mine… Last year, near the end of October, I was photographing this intriguing series of wispy clouds (cirrus clouds, I believe). As I stood gazing upwards, a subtle rainbow appeared. This was not a rainbow arcing across the sky, this was a rainbow in the cloud itself. I quickly snapped several shots and I’m glad that I didn’t hesitate because it only lasted about 2 seconds. (Really! I checked the time stamp on my photos!) After it disappeared, I mused to myself that it was a lucky thing I had been already engaged in the activity of photographing that particular cloud, or I’m certain I would have missed out on capturing it, and possibly never seen it at all.
So, according to the reading I’ve done, the (entirely unromantic) scientific term for this phenomenon is “circumhorizontal arc“. I have also seen it referred to as a “cloudbow” and I understand that it is a fairly common occurrence caused by the relatively high angle of the sun as it strikes ice crystals in the cloud. But for me, the instant association I had on that day, the very reason I was photographing the cloud in the first place…. was that it looked like a jellyfish. When the rainbow suffused the hanging tentacles, the illusion seemed complete to me. There, in the infinitely blue expanse of ocean-sky, hung a bioluminescent creature of the deep. Fanciful, I know… but, that’s what I saw. And once seen, it’s now impossible for me to unsee it. Why would I want to anyway?
Nice! Amazing shot. You are so lucky to have seen that (and captured it on film) considering it disappeared so quickly. I’ve never seen a rainbow like that embedded in a cloud! Reminds me of when I first saw the aurora borealis in the sky one night in Canada many years ago. Stunning. I wished I had gotten a photo. It moved around a changed so quickly. Disappearing and then returning. Considering it was the middle the night there was not enough light for me to capture it with my old 35mm Nikkormat anyway. But a good memory to have. Never know what you’ll see when you look UP. Those clouds do have a kind of clear jellyfish form and the ‘cloudbow’ frames it even better on the bottom (along with a nice bioluminescent touch like you said). Nice line of color. Amazing creatures and really fascinating to watch how they move through the water. Very graceful and rhythmic. I guess the sky is the last place you’d expect to see one! 🙂 B
Hmmmm… Your comments got me wanting to read a bit more, Ben. How lucky was I to see this, I wondered? I confess that I’m not always very good at interpreting charts and graphs, but take a look at this page: http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/chafreq.htm If I’m understanding this correctly then it is much less likely for you to be able to see one of these over there in NY. Los Angeles, on the other hand, seems to be the optimal location, with many opportunities to sight them in the summer. However, what’s sort of intriguing is that I saw this one on October 29th, a date they would list as “marginal”, with a much smaller opportunity to view a rainbow like this. Furthermore, they seem to imply that on such a date the sun would only reach the required latitude for a few minutes around noon. According to the time stamp on my camera, I took these images around 3:40 PM?!! So, maybe it was a bit of rare occurrence after all! I envy you having gotten a chance to see the Northern Lights for yourself! That’s definitely on my list of things I’d like to see in my lifetime. (Oh, BTW, that reminds me… that time lapse footage you re-posted about a week ago was AMAZING!) I don’t know if the sky IS the last place I’d expect to see a jellyfish… I often see similarities between sky and ocean. It’s not so hard for me to imagine entire secret “underwater worlds” that lurk somewhere up there. 🙂