His First Halo

Swedish astrophotographer Göran Strand took that picture above. It shows a halo around the Sun, replete with parhelia, over Lake Storsjön. That's his son in the photo. Besides being extremely beautiful and poignant, it's also just an astonishing shot. Strand used a 14mm wide-angle lens, which he needed because the full halo is 44° across, a quarter of the way around the horizon. A lens like that really compresses distance, so I'd guess his son was standing right in front of him. Haloes likes ...