Saturday, May 7, 2011

Sunset Series, 6

Even after the sun disappears below the horizon, the sunset is not over because of the crimson painting of the clouds.

Why do some areas have more colorful sunsets than others? Here is what I have been told. One of the factors is the lack of humidity in the air, which is why desert sunsets are more colorful. Think of what things look like under water. Blue is the predominant color, even though water is clear, not blue.

The for the blueness under water is that the water filters out the red colors and leaves the blue colors of the spectrum to predominate. The same filtering effect of water occurs in the air. When there is little humidity, there is less filtering out of the red colors so the sunsets appear more colorful.

I do not have a background in science, so I make no assurances of the accuracy of the above explanation, but it does make sense to me.

This week we are showing photos of San Xavier del Bac Mission, the White Dove of the Desert, outside Tucson, Arizona, on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.

8 comments:

Kate said...

Oh, but this is quite lovely, Dave!!

Birdman said...

For sure... after the sun is set the best part is to come.

Jack said...

Amazing sky. It looks ablaze. Whatever the reason, Hartford doesn't have anything like this.

Leif Hagen said...

A series of some very gorgeous sunsets! Ahhh!

I send you a cyber piece of my cake today!

Sharon said...

This is simply gorgeous!

Lois said...

It looks like a painting!

irinapictures said...

At last I have the reasonable explanation why the sunsets in Moscow sky become more and more red each year. It does not calm me down, but I prefer to understand what is going on. Thank you, Dave.
Fantastic posts about sunset these week here.

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

i like the clouds in this photo.

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