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Last evening there was the perfect rainbow condition: A bright evening sun shining into a rainstorm just overhead. I went outside to see both complete arcs from horizon to horizon . THen...
the inner rainbow (the most commonly seen rainbow, with red on the outside of the bow) looked odd: instead of blue on the inside, it was definitely magenta. Then I noticed that the entire cycle of colors repeated a total of four times. Each cycle overlapped the red on top of the previous blue (hence the magenta). Each cycle got fainter and tighter together so that I assumed that it continued ad infinitum but was too faint to be seen after the fourth order. I have never seen nor heard of this rainbow phenomena before. My only guess is that this is due to sunlight internally reflecting inside the raindrop for one, two, or three laps inside the drop before refracting out.
Has anyone heard of, or seen, or have an explanation of this?
the inner rainbow (the most commonly seen rainbow, with red on the outside of the bow) looked odd: instead of blue on the inside, it was definitely magenta. Then I noticed that the entire cycle of colors repeated a total of four times. Each cycle overlapped the red on top of the previous blue (hence the magenta). Each cycle got fainter and tighter together so that I assumed that it continued ad infinitum but was too faint to be seen after the fourth order. I have never seen nor heard of this rainbow phenomena before. My only guess is that this is due to sunlight internally reflecting inside the raindrop for one, two, or three laps inside the drop before refracting out.
Has anyone heard of, or seen, or have an explanation of this?