greenflash at westend of island

When the Blomgren's were visiting we dined at Sandcastles and here are some photos:

I am using this definition from a website: at sunsets.com

A Sunset Spectacle: The Green Flash


Myth or Reality?

The "green flash" is the encore to Mother Nature's spectacular sunset lightshow. Myths, legends and disputes about its existence are many, but there is no doubt the green flash is real. There is also no doubt that the flash sometimes is not green.



What is the Green Flash?

Like the name says, it is a flash of green seen at the beginning of sunrise and at the end of sunset, just above the disk of the setting sun. It usually appears in a clear sky. The flash can also be blue, yellow, green or violet. Green, however, is the most common.



What Causes the Green Flash Effect?

The green flash has much in common with the ordinary, everyday red and orange sunsets. The same characteristics and conditions are shared by both. The setting sun doesn't just happen-behind the glowing colours, science is at work.



What the human eye sees during a sunset are bent light rays from a sun already down behind the horizon. The atmosphere is responsible for this bending. Therefore, what appears to be the tip of the sun sliding out of view is, in reality, an image created by these bent light rays.



A quirk of the atmosphere is that it scatters blue light more than any other colour of light. So, even though the blue light is "bent" the most, its scattering causes its colour to be diffused and spread across the sky. In this way, the warm glows of red and yellow remain to colour our sunsets, while the sky is blue.



During the average sunset, first the red vision of the sun vanishes and then the yellow, green, blue and violet. Blue and violet flashes are less common than green flashes because a haze in the air removes the violet and the blue, too, leaving the green flash as the last spurt of light visible on the "top" of the sun. If the air is very clear, a "violet flash" occurs.