There was a good display of these bows this evening here at about 1800 BST.
I could clearly see three such inner bows and there was a hint of a fourth
in the original images. These are highly compressed photos on this page.

http://www.mtullett.plus.com/24-oct-2006/

--
Mike Coleraine 55.13°N 6.69°W posted 24/10/2006 19:49:01 GMT

On Oct 24, 8:49 pm, Mike Tullett
wrote:
There was a good display of these bows this evening here at about 1800 BST.
I could clearly see three such inner bows and there was a hint of a fourth
in the original images. These are highly compressed photos on this page.

http://www.mtullett.plus.com/24-oct-2006/

--
Mike Coleraine 55.13°N 6.69°W posted 24/10/2006 19:49:01 GMT

Excellent pics. There is a secondary bow visible also in some
of them. The supernumerary bows are caused by diffraction and I wonder
if they are more likely if the drops are smaller. Was that so in this
case?

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

On 24 Oct 2006 18:40:46 -0700, Tudor Hughes wrote in
ups.com

http://www.mtullett.plus.com/24-oct-2006/


Excellent pics. There is a secondary bow visible also in some
of them. The supernumerary bows are caused by diffraction and I wonder
if they are more likely if the drops are smaller. Was that so in this
case?

According to Les Cowley's site [1] "Supernumeraries are created by small,
almost same sized raindrops." And there is a simulation there using 0.7mm
mean diameter drops, all about the same size.

I wasn't aware of any falling rain when the rainbows were first seen, so
was very surprised to see them. How big the drops were~? Pass:-)

[1] http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/rainbows/supers.htm


--
Mike Coleraine 55.13°N 6.69°W posted 25/10/2006 18:47:42 GMT