Posted by chris on July 23, 2015, 11:30 pm, in reply to "Green Flash"
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Hi Daniel and Rob,
You are both photographer so you probably know all this already:
It is possible that the scientific explanation for the "green flash"is even more magical than we imagine. I don't know the exact explanation but here are a few contributing factors:
When visible light approaches the planet from the sun and other heavenly bodies it is comprised of Red Green and Blue light. I think most people know this.
However, when this light hits the outer atmosphere the high frequency wavelengths collide with particles of water vapour dust and pollution etc and are stripped from the incoming signal.
These hi frequency light rays are perceived by our human eyes as the colour blue and this is why the sky is blue ( and why skiers wear orange goggles- but that's another story!)
The remaining light is predominantly Red and this is why we get red sunsets. The sun shines through more of earth's atmosphere at dawn and sunset than at any other time of the day. Try thinking about drilling into coconut flesh at an oblique angle and you will see why this is s. The more oblique the angle the more coconut flesh the drill has to pass through. Th same is true of the sun's rays.
So what happened to all the green light from the original RGB signal? Well I have to admit that I don't really know! Do you?
It has to be somewhere?
Perhaps when the red and blue light are particularly intense (at a very spectacular sunset.) the green light escapes and reflects on the underside of clouds shadow areas behind waves and so on. This seems a little unlikely!?
Alternatively it is perhaps more likely that the green flash is entirely subjective in the sense that it appears as an "after image" on the retina of the person who sees it. Stare intently at a red light source then look away - the brain generates the complimentary colour - you will see Green.This might explain why your friends did not see what you saw. They hadn't absorbed enough light to generate a green afterimage.
I hope I will see this intriguing Green Flash with my own eyes one day.
Aren't you glad things are not what they seem to be?!
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