Color and Light in Nature

About this book

Provides clear explanations to all naturally occurring optical phenomena seen with the naked eye, including shadows, halos, water optics, mirages and a host of other spectacles. Separating myth from reality, it outlines the basic principles involved, and supports them with many figures and references. A wealth of rare and spectacular photographs, many in full colour, illustrate the phenomena throughout.

Contents

Preface; 1. Shadows; 2. Clear air; 3. Water; 4. Water drops; 5. Ice and halos; 6. Naked eye astronomy; 7. Observing; 8. Exotic clouds; Glossary; Index.

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Biography

David Lynch is an astronomer and atmospheric physicist, specializing in infrared studies of star-formation regions, comets, supernovae and cirrus clouds. After receiving his PhD in astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin, he was a Visiting Associate in Physics at the California Institute of Technology and an Assistant Astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley. He has worked at the Hughes Research Laboratories and the Aerospace Corporation, and operates Thule Scientific, a private research institute. He has organised and chaired many meetings on atmospheric science and been Principal Investigator on a variety of NASA, NOAA, NSF and DoD programs. Bill Livingston has been an astronomer at the Kitt Peak Observatory in southern Arizona for his entire professional life (since Jan 1959). Originally he helped design and build instruments and telescopes. Later he became a solar observer and has spent a great deal of time on Kitt Peak, a fact which accounts for many of the pictures in this book. He participated in many solar eclipse expeditions which took him to Alaska, the South Pacific, Africa, Indonesia, India, and recently Turkey. He has traveled widely in Russia and China, but he hastens to add that his best sightings of atmospheric phenomena were from his backyard in Tucson.