Utter shock and amazement. Marko Riikonen called me this night and told that he had seen some very good halos in his car's windshield. Needless to say, I sped to his place as soon as I could. I am indebted to Riikonen to have observed this display.
For a more thorough treatment of this display, see our Ice Crystal Halos blog entry.
As I arrived, I joined Marko in the quest to document these phenomena as thoroughly as possibly. We took turns in holding the lamp and shooting images from various angles and with various lamp elevations. I also shot a lot of video as these phenomena were best captured in video format.
The task was not a simple one as illuminating the crystals on the windshield through the glass and above the glass yielded apparently different results. Then we had to figure out various lamp elevations, directions from where to shoot the windshield and also the fact that the rear window also provided us with a display of a certain characteristics.
As the night progressed, we were able to go though various configurations and to observe a variety of halos. As to the history of surface halos, this display seems to be in a class of its own.
This display will require a thorough examination and at the moment at least one unidentified halo can be seen in one of the videos. None of the usual suspects seem to fit the bill.
I am sorry about the compressed videos but I was unable to upload the originals.
