Amazing Rainbow in Kyoto Tonight
Anthony, Mommy, and Daddy
Anthony, Mommy, and Daddy

Half an hour after the sun went behind the mountains, and 10 minutes after the official sunset when it was already fairly dark, I saw the most amazing, deeply rich maroon/crimson/pink rainbow you could imagine.

At first I caught only the glimpse of one edge of it... it was brilliant, all the more so because of the aforementioned darkness, and perhaps also because the sunlight creating it must have been the deepest of the reds of sunset (seeing how the sun had set 10 minutes prior, it was made with the last rays still hitting misting rain from the upper clouds). It was during that golden moment you might see a few times a year when every wisp of cloud is brilliantly pink to begin with, set against a subdued darkening sky.

Anyway, suffice to say that I'd never seen anything like it, and it inspired awe. And that was just one edge of it. To see more, we had to go out onto the balcony.

I rushed Anthony out onto the balcony, then rushed myself into my room to grab my camera. And my monopod, which took an agonizing 30 seconds to find. Oh, drat, the camera doesn't have a memory card, so I quickly put one in. Geez, you know, it's really too dark for the monopod, I may as well just use my new tripod, but the @*#&!($&)%! protective cover won't come off in the split second I want it to, and I have to wrestle with it for five seconds. Finally, I rush out onto the balcony to see the final glimmers of the rainbow and rich clouds fading away to a bleak nothingness. Sigh.

(UPDATE: I missed it, but a friend did not.)

I was depressed both about missing it, and about not getting a picture of it. Anthony sensed this, and said that he'd draw a picture of it for me that would make me happy and that I could “keep with me until I die,” which is what's featured above. He took some poetic license in that he's missing the reds and pinks that were predominate, it was dark but there weren't yet stars, and Mommy wasn't there. (Mommy was at an appointment at the time, and the taxi driver on the way home told her about it, and about how everyone was taking pictures of it. Everyone but me, that is.)

Anyway, Anthony's drawing did make me happier.

Mommy had recently taught him how to make stars with two triangles. I think the black thing in the upper-right is a failed attempt, with two triangles that aren't quite arranged as effectively as he'd hoped. By the one in the upper-left, he seems to have gotten the hang of it.


All 2 comments so far, oldest first...

Make a negative version of the image and maybe we get a better idea of what you saw/missed? Well done, Anthony.

Peter

— comment by Peter on September 6th, 2007 at 11:33pm JST (16 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

I can’t figure out how to get trackback working, so here is my post with a few good pictures of the rainbow. It’s a good thing I have such low standards for photographic quality that I actually get the photo taken, even from a moving car. 🙂

http://www.kotodama.net/blog/?p=114

— comment by Zak on September 7th, 2007 at 9:47am JST (16 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink
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