[TigersEye]

That was a great graphic wasn't it? lol

Magic Hour #2

The first magic hour is fairly well known in photography. What I call magic hour #2 is probably not as well recognized by photographers. Magic Hour #2 is also composed of two, approximately, half hour periods. The first period is the half hour before the sun rises above the horizon in the morning. The second period is the half hour after the sun sinks below the horizon in the early evening. Typically, the most intense colors occur about twenty minutes before sunrise or after sunset. Depending on atmospheric conditions, magic hour #2 can produce two different types of lighting conditions. The first type of light is as follows:

Color: The light is very warm and produces very saturated colors.

Quality: The light is soft.

Direction: The light directly illuminates clouds from below. Everything else is in shadow.

[EternalVigilance]

Interesting.

[Yardstick]

The second period is the half hour after the sun sinks below the horizon in the early evening...Direction: The light directly illuminates clouds from below. Everything else is in shadow.

Yeah, I don't dispute this. What my drawing shows is that it's possible for the sun to backlight a contrail at sunset, and this doesn't disagree with that. Finny seemed to be saying that the contrail had to be lit from underneath and my drawing shows that that isn't true.

Here is a what I said a couple posts later:

The viewer on the ground will of course see the underside of the contrail. My point, which I think my drawing gets across pretty clearly, is that it's possible for a contrail to be lit from behind by the sun. To be honest, it's hard to tell exactly how the light is hitting it since it's coming in at such a grazing angle. It's either from slightly above or from slightly below, but mostly it's from "end on" -- i.e. in a direction running almost parallel to its length. It also appears to be getting light on its northern flank in some pics.