Corona. A small halo tight to the sun or moon. Appears within a nearly transparent cloud 
layer called cirrostratus clouds. As the light passes through the horizontally oriented 
'pencil-shaped' ice crystals in the clouds, it is diffracted and dispersed into colorful 
rings around the light source. An example of this is a Newtonian ring. It is the same ring 
as seen in a car with headlights shining thru a fogged window. The colors are the same that 
appear with iridescent clouds and rainbows.

  A pair of glasses with polarized lenses is required, not only to protect the eyes, but 
most of these sky phenomenon can't be detected without them! 

  Glory. An interesting phenomenon. Stand facing a cloud bank while the sun is rising at your back. It will look like 
a corona around the sun, with the same coloring. The shadow within the Glory is called the 'Brocken Spectre'

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  Here was a corona appearing within the fast moving clouds of autumn.

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  This summer in Memphis, Michigan has seen a lot of sunny days mixed with rain. The morning of June 17th, 2005 
saw this corona appearing within a fast moving cloud.

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  Here are a few more corona and iridescense.

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  Finally, a very nice, colorful solar corona. I haven't shot any good corona in a while. 
This one appeared out of nowhere.  

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  Here are my first examples of corona (both moon and sun).  

moon corona

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sun corona

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