Ed Darack's Images of Refraction

Some interesting refraction related images placed here for those interested:

Marfa Mystery Lights video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KzO5W-ys2I

Ed Darack - www.darack.com / ed@darack.com

The best resource for refraction, mirages, the green flash, etc. is Andrew T. Young's web page:

http://aty.sdsu.edu/bibliog/overview.html

This is an animated gif sequence of a "Mystery" or "Ghost" light in the Tularosa Basin of New Mexico. The light's source is the headlight array from a locomotive. You can see the effects of a complex superior mirage above the ground, and the light itself refracted to the viewer, making it look "otherworldly." Note also the greenish hue of the superior, refracted image, as this is another result of this form of extreme refraction (similar mechanism that produces the Green Flash). This is the same type of atmospheric situation that viewers witness with the most fanciful of the Marfa Mystery Lights (with car headlights). The mirage has elements of the Fata Morgana Mirage. Photographed from White Sands National Monument in March of 2008 with a Nikon D300 fitted with a 200-400 f/4 lens with a 1.7x teleconverter, looking east.

Also, the camera wasn't shaking, but the whole scene was being refracted and thus "moved."

Here it is at a reduced frame rate

Sequence of a hill through the effects of a fata morgana mirage. - White Sands, March, 2008

Complex superior, elements of the fata morgana, taken from White Sands, March, 2008, looking south.