Reflected rainbow at sunset

Rainbows are always opposite the Sun and their centres are below the horizon at the the so called antisolar point. Early morning and late afternoon it the best time to see a rainbow because the sun must not be too high. The lower the sun the higher is the rainbow.

In this photo I took in Vansbro, Sweden, taken just before sunset, the rainbow is as high as it gets and with the reflection in the water, acting as the lower half of a circle, it's easy to see that the rainbow was at its highest position. Had the Sun been any higher in the sky, this circle had been more ellipse shaped.

Rainbows are rarer than might be thought, halos are much more common.

Panorama made with a Nikon D800E with a Nikon AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8 lens

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Low and High Rainbow

Here I have combined two shots from yesterday of two different rainbows. It's interesting to see how the Suns altitude in the sky affects the height of the rainbow.

The first photo was taken at 15:25 UTC (Add two hours for Swedish summer time) when the Sun had an altitude of 27° above the horizon. In the second shot, taken at 19:48 UTC, the Sun was just 0.033° (2 arc minutes) above the horizon. At sunrise or sunset a rainbow's centre is on the horizon as seen in the second image.

Dubbel regnbåge / Double rainbow

Idag syntes en väldigt kraftig och färgsprakande regnbåge över Östersund. Jag åkte ner till Frösö båthamn för att fånga den på bild. Detta är en bild som är gjord från flera exponeringar för att tydligare få fram regnbågens alla färger, samt den svagare sekundära bågen.

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Here's a photo I took today of a very strong a beautiful double rainbow over the city of Östersund.