A Vertical Light-beam through the Setting Sun

Abstract

THE not very frequently observed appearance of a vertical pillar of light through the sun when nearly setting was so very remarkably distinct and bright this evening as to deserve, perhaps, a particular description. I observed it in the Victoria Park, near Hackney, in the north-eastern part of London, from about 7h. 30m. to 8h. 10m. p.m. The setting sun at the first of those times was about 7° or 8° above the horizon, and its light was but little dimmed and tinged with yellow yet, by faint cirro-stratus cloud-bands among which it was shining, which ruled the western sky obliquely downwards towards a point of the horizon about 45° northwards from the sun. The light column then, when I first saw it, was yellow coloured, bright and narrow at the base, but more diffused above, where it could be traced up to a length of 5° or 6°, while its base rested upon, or extended very little, if at all, below the sun. The summit grew narrower and higher as the sun descended lower, while the base became brighter and followed the sun down until, at about ten or fifteen minutes to 8, the sun was much dulled in light and assumed an orange yellow colour in entering a bank of haze about 5° from the horizon. Below that altitude the light-column's base never descended; but when at about 8 p.m. the sun had acquired the magnificent appearance of a great crimson disc, still about 2°, or some four of its diameters, clear from the level park horizon, the tall column shone beautifully above it as a perfectly straight, vertical, narrow streak of light about the sun's apparent diameter in width and 8° or 10° in length (from about altitude 5° to altitude 15°, and very faintly rather higher), bright yellow at its base, but becoming insensibly whiter and dimmer, without lateral diffusion till lost across the faint cloud-streaks which seemed here and there just visibly to lengthen it and very faintly extend it somewhat higher. It shortened gradually, and died out at last about 8h. 10m. p.m., soon after the sun itself vanished in the haze before reaching the horizon, but without changing the altitude, about 5°, of its base; and it retained to the last the straight, vertical appearance of which many of the vast number of people enjoying the fine evening in the extensive park were admiring watchers. I noticed no horizontal belt of light through the sun, nor mock-suns at their usual distances on its right and left hands, where the bands of cirro-stratus yet extended far enough to have given rise to them if they had consisted of cloud-materials of a fit and suitable description to produce them; and nothing very notable, except the vertical light-beam across the streaky clouds and the sun's intensely red-coloured orb below it, seemed to be of very marked meteorological significance in the beautiful display.