Sunset with 'Etruscan vase' effect & green flash

as seen from Playa de las Americas, Tenerife, on 25 February 2009

This cosmic, err, atmospheric physics drama unfolded while we had paellas in a beach restaurant in Playa de las Americas on Tenerife on 25 February 2009: After seemingly having vanished for good behind low clouds, the Sun miraculously reappeared in a completely cloud-free strip on the horizon and performed a textbook-style inferior mirage show, explained in all its glorious detail here, with the specific omega case here. Note that three of the pictures appear twice, cropped differently (the scenery with surfers in the occasional birds, and people walking past, added to the fascinating experience). The chronological order is strictly observed.

I am thrilled by Omega suns since being surprised by an omega effect on a partially eclipsed Sun rising out of the Atlantic Ocean prior to the annular eclipse of 2006. Later I also tracked down why the phenomenon (which has been the topic of an APOD two days ago and a newspaper story today!) was often called "Etruscan vase": This was introduced by Jules Verne in the showdown of his novel The Rayon Vert; see e.g. page 287 of this German translation.

As predicted by the theory outlined in the websites linked to above, if you see an omega effect, the likelyhood is high that a green flash follows - and it did for us, too! The obvious green spot on the horizon was visible to the naked eye for about one second; when the camera clicked, it had started to fade already. All pictures taken with a Panasonic DMC-TZ2, mostly with the x10 optical zoom at maximum focal length. No histogram processing applied, only cropping.

Pictures & text by Daniel Fischer, posted from Tenerife on 25 February 2009