Rainbows on shirts

I always had a penchant for rainbows. And when rainbows are that close to us - on the shirt (and near the heart) of my students in Seksyen 5- even nicer!

This rainbow spectrum was part of the Hodson Light Box Kit experiments where we conducted light experiments on thick and thin convex and concave lenses, plane and curved mirrors and lastly prisms.

The spectrum is formed by light dispersion when white light meet the prism.

I am updating this post many years later on 27th Aug 2022. The rainbow spectrum shown below is photographed by my 5+ years grand daughter Emma as I sprayed my garden hose onto the white wall of my car porch. The evening sun is behind me and the sunrays create a nice spectrum on the wall.

The most spectacular rainbows I and some friends have ever experienced was in August 1997. We were descending from the peak of Mount Kinabalu. The intense sun rays were behind us and in front of us was a lot of mist. We saw two circular double rainbows ( circular because we were at a very high place and could see the bottom bow of the rainbow as well as the usual top bow). We saw figures in the middle of the rainbows and when we moved our hands, the figures in the middle of the rainbow moved their hands too! That's when we all realized the figures in the middle of the rainbows were actually our shadows cast by the intense sun rays. The sunrays and the mist at this high point formed the two circular rainbows. We all recognized it was a holy moment, orchestrated perfectly by God Almighty in terms of location and weather conditions. Someone did take a photo but back then, photography technology is nothing like now (August 2022) and the photos showed donly the faintest rainbows. However in our memories of the entire group that descended from Mount Kinabalu, that moment is clearly etched in our memories and hearts. God is ever leading us in time and space, whether we are aware of Him or not.

Today 6th September 2022,( 25 years later from the phenomena we experienced together ) I found out the name of the above phonomena that happened to us while we were descending Mout Kinabalu. It is called the Brocken Spectre. No wonder we could see what our shadow silhouttes were doing clearly- the Brocken Spectre explaind the shadows were amplified and it is named a type of glory! Yes! The photo above is credits to https://panoramicireland.com/blog-ireland-guide/croagh-patrick-pilgrimage-brocken-spectre-ringed-glory-irish-mountain