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RARE HALO IN AUSTRIA / METEOPTIC
WITH this message the halo activists of Finland send
our warm and very best congratulations to our colleagues in
Austria and in Germany.
The post just brought the latest "Mitteilungen des Arbeitskreises
Meteore" leaflet published by the Arbeitskreis
Meteore group in Germany. This gang of highly
experienced Central European German speaking meteor
observers has been watching also for halos and other
atmospheric phenomena for one and a half decades if I
recollect right. Some of the active members have e-mail
addresses and are members of METEOPTIC (like Sirko Molau,
Jürgen Rendtel, Burkhard Wiche etc).
We have been waiting for years for it to happen that somebody
in Central Europe would finally catch the heliac arc
and back the observation up with good photographs. In United
States this has been done at least once. The Dutch group
has not yet succeeded in seeing this rarity though they have
been on watch for halos for more than one hundred years.
Even in Finland, though we enjoy a bit better climate for
rare halos than say Central Europe, we've managed so far to
catch only 2 photographed cases of heliac arcs. In the
Antarctic interior the halo scholars Tape and Können have
catched a load of these white solar trespassers, but that
area has an enormous wealth of rare Parry orientation halos
and is unique in that. The photographs of heliac arcs
or antisolar arcs are more than dreadfully scarce in
midlatitudes.
As evident from the drawings made on basis of photographs by
the observer Karl Kaiser, the Austria has just joined the
very small gang of heliac arc countries. Congratulations.
To the best of my knowledge it is also the first photographed
heliac arc anywhere in Central Europe and one of the less than
5 photographed cases from anywhere in midlatitudes.
Likewise as in the 6 September 1985 display of Kuopio, Finland
the strange "distorted Parry arc" seems to have shown itself
again in context with a heliac arc. This is highly valuable
information for science purposes. It is obvious that Karl
Kaiser has made one of the most interesting halo observations
of recent decades in Central Europe.
I would suggest Kaiser himself to publish his display and the
photographs in the British WEATHER, the magazine having long
traditions in historical halo publications regarding Europe.
The uniqueness of the sighting by Kaiser will make it certain
that the thing would be published. The Weather has recently
expressed interest (privat information) to have more valuable
halo publications in order to maintain her tradition.
In MITTEILUNGEN DES AKM follows an article by Wolfgang Hinz
gathering together the 4 observations of distorted Parry arcs
in German speaking areas. The same, strange apparation has
been sighted a few times in Scandinavia as some of you know
already. A candidate mechanism responsible for it was suggested
a few years ago by Marko Riikonen and Jukka Ruoskanen.
According to the idea by Riikonen and Ruoskanen this new halo
seems to fit well to Parry oriented column crystals that would
oscillate a bit (imagine a pencil with a pair of side
faces horizontal and the both ends of the long pencil rising and
falling a bit). The same mechanism would produce the kind of noncomplete
heliac arc as seen in Kuopio in 1985 and now in austria
in 1995. Since both observations agree with the model, there is
good cause to assume that the explanation was the right one.
All observations of distorted Parry arcs were good to assamble
together and publish in the American APPLIED OPTICS. This halo
has been discussed a few years ago in the small leaflet of
Finns (Ursa Minor) and now Kaiser and Hinz have discussed it in the
German equivalent (Mitteilungen des AKM). It would be now high
time to tell the English-speaking world about these apparitions.
My best regards,
Marko
PS. Sirko Molau, please forward a copy of this to Wolfgang and
to Kaiser himself. Thanks in advance. You guys have been doing
some splendid job down there. (Es war auch speziellt freuend
dass Kaiser kritisch war mit seinem nebensonnen).
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