Illusion of the Two Suns
I had a little trawl through the internet hoping to solve the riddle of an optical illusion that might make people believe they have literally seen two or three suns in the sky, as reported by William Lilly and referenced in The Secret Teachings of All Ages, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover a very satisfying explanation: not only that but I have seen the illusion in question with my own eyes, once or perhaps twice, but must have filed it away under "anomalous weather conditions" in my mind so that it didn't even feature anywhere in my consciousness when I came to write a blog about a twin sunset.
http://www.greatdreams.com/twosuns.htm
Very near the top of the page, the second photograph down that says "photo with permission of Daniel" you will see the two suns yourself. Looks like a photoshop special, but it isn't. It is an optical illusion that can only work when the sun is at a certain height in the sky, when there is a certain type of cloud cover in the sky, like the one in the photograph, and when the sun is partially hidden behind those clouds, and with a generous halo that cannot be visually determined from the sun itself. The second sun appears partially hidden behind the same clouds, a good distance across the sky from the real sun, and appears as the same large bright halo with an indeterminable centre. It is incredibly bright, so much so that the first time I saw this phenomenon I couldn't believe my eyes, it really did look like a second sun to the degree that I could not distinguish which sun was real and which was the mirage. Truly breathtaking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage_of_astronomical_objects
This is the nearest thing I could find in what little time I had to dig on the subject of a mirage creating the illusion of a binary sunset, although I found the whole article slightly ambiguous and I'm not sure if it presents a direct adressing of the specific phenomenon I am writing about, although no doubt it falls somewhere into the broader category.
Food for thought: Has a mirage ever been produced of a second burning sun, high in the crystal clear blue sky, in the plain light of day?
Edit to add:
---
Found it! It's called a Parhelion, Sun Dog or Mock Sun... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog
Surely the phenomenon William Lilly was writing about?
http://www.greatdreams.com/twosuns.htm
Very near the top of the page, the second photograph down that says "photo with permission of Daniel" you will see the two suns yourself. Looks like a photoshop special, but it isn't. It is an optical illusion that can only work when the sun is at a certain height in the sky, when there is a certain type of cloud cover in the sky, like the one in the photograph, and when the sun is partially hidden behind those clouds, and with a generous halo that cannot be visually determined from the sun itself. The second sun appears partially hidden behind the same clouds, a good distance across the sky from the real sun, and appears as the same large bright halo with an indeterminable centre. It is incredibly bright, so much so that the first time I saw this phenomenon I couldn't believe my eyes, it really did look like a second sun to the degree that I could not distinguish which sun was real and which was the mirage. Truly breathtaking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage_of_astronomical_objects
This is the nearest thing I could find in what little time I had to dig on the subject of a mirage creating the illusion of a binary sunset, although I found the whole article slightly ambiguous and I'm not sure if it presents a direct adressing of the specific phenomenon I am writing about, although no doubt it falls somewhere into the broader category.
Food for thought: Has a mirage ever been produced of a second burning sun, high in the crystal clear blue sky, in the plain light of day?
Edit to add:
---
Found it! It's called a Parhelion, Sun Dog or Mock Sun... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog
Surely the phenomenon William Lilly was writing about?
Labels: astronomical mirage, atmospheric phenomenon, binary star, cloud, mock sun, mysticism, optical illusion, parhelion, sun dog, sunset, symbolism
posted by The Blogging Mystic at
04:57
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