EarthSky Community Photos

Submit your photo here. Comment or upvote on photo pages. Search via photographers' names. More improvements coming! To help, please donate.

Meiying Lee
Mount Hehuan, Nantou, Taiwan
01/31/2023
05:44 am

Equipment Details:

Canon R7 + 600mm Lens

Post-processing Details:

Post-processing Details: Use PowerPoint to crop and enlarge the 12 photos and combine them together.

Image Details:

The last 6 seconds of sunset - the last yellow, green and blue lights line the horizon like pearls!
How does the sun disappear in the last few seconds of sunset? On the evening of January 31, I saw this wonderful sunset on Hehuan Mountain, which is 3,000 meters high. When the sun has fallen below the horizon, we can continue to see sunlight refracted from below the horizon because of atmospheric refraction. In the last few seconds, when there is only one line of sunlight left, because of the different refractive indices of various colors of light, we can see different colors of light—yellow, green, and blue are arranged on that line like pearls! In the last 1 second, they disappeared one by one in front of the camera. First, the yellow light with the smallest refractive index disappears, then the green light, and the blue light with the largest refractive index disappears last. Because the intensity of blue light is the weakest, and the eyes are more sensitive to yellow-green light, so the naked eye could only see a green light disappearing in the sky. What was left at the end was the cheers of everyone who saw the magical green light with their own eyes!
The first segment of the film shows the last 28 seconds of sunset at normal speed, and the second segment presents the last 8 seconds of sunset at slow speed. How the pearls of different colors disappear can be seen more clearly in the video. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ7vm4g5dXw

2024 EarthSky Fundraiser

Any amount will help us reach our goal.

Would you consider

donating?

If you've already donated, we apologize for the popup and greatly appreciate your support.