The Eye of Sauron Appears Over Sweden

It's a little bit weird to think that sometimes, when you look at the sky, it looks like it's looking back. That shot was taken by astrophotographer (and friend of the BA blog) Göran Strand. It shows an amazing display of atmospheric optics caused by ice crystals high in the atmosphere. He took it on Apr. 25, 2014, around noon local time. There are three main optical phenomena seem here. The circle around the Sun is the 22° halo, which is relatively common. It's formed when ice crystals (likel...