double rainbow guy

[ztuba]

I was looking at yahoo news and ran across this double rainbow guy... Wow that guy flipped out... I have seen a few double rainbows and never asked myself "What does it mean?" He must be on something. Like a new Windows Ad LOL Must be nice

[oldbandnerd]

He's an old pothead. He even said so in a interview he gave on the TODAY show.

[bort]

I was looking at yahoo news and ran across this double rainbow guy... Wow that guy flipped out... I have seen a few double rainbows and never asked myself "What does it mean?" He must be on something. Like a new Windows Ad LOL Must be nice

The Windows ad is pretty clever, I like it. But they made a big mistake -- double rainbows are supposed to be mirror images of each other. The top of the lower rainbow should be red (correct), but the bottom of the upper rainbow should be red (wrong). Their double rainbow is a total fake. No way that one can approach triple rainbow status.

SNAG-0758.jpg

[bort]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/0 ... 03509.html

[iiipopes]

There's just one problem with the double rainbow in the ad: it's wrong. The primary rainbow is on the bottom and has the outside band as the red and the inside band as the violet. On the upper rainbow, that should be the reflection rainbow with the colors reversed. Find a picture of a real double rainbow and you'll see it is actually reversed. For example:

http://www.missouriskies.org/rainbow/fe ... _2006.html" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
http://www.crystalinks.com/rainbowphotos.html" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

And then, one of the the best real pictures, scroll about 1/4 the way down:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/2008-01-new.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

And, more double rainbows that a single person may ever see in a single lifetime in a single location:
http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/double,rainbow" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Finally, when I was a boy, I actually saw a triple rainbow once. The raincloud was just the right size and in the right position with the sun in the west that it actually reflected twice off the main rainbow, causing a triple. As each reflection happens, it, of course, gets progressively fainter and more difficult to see, much less take a picture of, but it is there. For example:
http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/vie ... number=406" target="_blank" target="_blank

Here's why they happen, with this link to rainbows in particular, but then the main website has everything you would ever want to know and more about all the atmospheric opticals:
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/orders.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank