This was one of the most awesome sights I have ever seen in the sky. This display occurred over the Black Rapids Glaicer. Around the Sun you can see the 22° halo, a fragment of the 46° halo, and parhelia (sun dogs). It’s pretty rare to see the tangent arc (at the top of the halo) and even rarer to see a parhelic circle – the line that continues ‘horizontally’ from the sundog. At times this made a full 360° circle around our heads from camp.

This photograph has been featured on Earth Science Photo of the Day and at a First Friday, an art event in Fairbanks, Alaska. Here it is cropped and re-sized to fit a variety of wide print sizes.