A quick look wont do

MikeDYur

If I was a pilot, I think this would cause a rush.



EDIT: Here's a link,

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap161222.html

Looking out the window of an airplane, you might be lucky enough to see "the glory" in the direction directly opposite the Sun. Before airplanes, the phenomenon, known to some as the heiligenschein or the Specter of the Brocken, was sometimes seen from mountaintops. There, when conditions were right, one could look away from the Sun and see what appeared to be the shadow of a giant surrounded by a bright halo. The giant turns out to be the observer, as in the modern version a silhouette of an plane frequently occupies the glory's center. This bright glory was photographed two weeks ago over Michigan from an airplane on approach to O'Hare International Airport. The cause of the glory is still being researched and is relatively complex. Surely, small droplets of water in some way reflect, refract, and diffract sunlight backwards towards the Sun. The phenomenon has similar counterparts in other branches of science including astronomy, where looking out from the Earth in the direction opposite the Sun yields a bright spot called the gegenschein.
Image Credit & Copyright: Shane Larson (Adler Planetarium, CIERA-Northwestern)

Heater.

My simple mind says "Meh, it's a rainbow"

My observation is that when I see a rainbow, the sun is in one direction, the rainbow is directly opposite.

Normally the rainbow is a semi-circle because I'm on the ground and the ground gets in the way.

If I was high enough clearly the rainbow would make a complete circle.

But then, obviously, I would be casting a shadow of myself into the middle of the rainbow.

But then, we can wonder why the diameter of the rainbow is so small in this case. And how does a rainbow work anyway?

Neat picture all the same.

xanadu

That's really cool, I love sky and cloud phenomena.

Tor

I've observed those circle rainbows w/shadow in the center many times from airplanes.

Rainbows are interesting. This summer I saw a funny one.. it was visible with the sun in front of me, instead of at the back. I'm guessing that the rainbow was caused by ice crystals in the atmosphere. Well, it couldn't be water drops. But usually ice rainbows have a more non-rainbow look than what I saw. It looked like a rainbow, just in an "impossible" direction.