The Green Flash

[Drifterman]

I have on several occasions heard of a phenomenon associated with the setting sun called the "Green Flash".

Can anyone give me the (layman's) explanation for it, and whether there are any places where it can regularly be observed?

Has anyone here ever seen it?

 

[Yahweh]

Here is an interesting article about the Green Flash Phenomenon.

The Green Flash is an phenomenon seen at sunset and sunrise, when the top edge of the sun suddenly change color, turn from yellow or orange to green or rarely blue.

As far as I know its just an atmospheric distortion that causes the top edge of setting sun to suddenly appear to be green in color. I havent seen one personally because I dont fancy my time staring into the sun.

 

[Drifterman]

Cheers

Very interesting

 

[Charlie in Dayton]

The Green Flash exists, and I have seen it twice, at sunrise and sunset on the north shore of Lake Michigan. The Sun sorta kinda needs to set over a water horizon (guaranteed more flat than a dirt horizon), where the atmosphere is at its thickest/most refractive. The last split instant of the Sun above the horizon gets refracted into an unexpected color -- my viewings of it have been green.

At the time of viewing, the majority (95%+) of the Sun is below the horizon, so it's not going to be terribly blinding. I wouldn't recommend watching it for the hour preceding sunset, though...

An impressive sight. Check it out if you can.

 

[arcticpenguin]

Can the Green Flash be caught on film? I am wondering whether it might be a trick of perception.

 

[JamesM]

Can the Green Flash be caught on film? I am wondering whether it might be a trick of perception.

I searched for "green flash" and "sun" on Google images and got some pictures.

Not quite as spectacular as I would have hoped, but it seems green enough to me:

an example

Fingers crossed that link doesn't turn out to be an article about sonar...

 

[Brown]

It's not widely known, but the sun is, on average, green. The average wavelength of sunlight is 555 nm, which is green light (or green-yellow) light.