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T he Green Ray
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Strange Beach Sunset
I've heard several times in my life of the green ray and I've always been curious about it. Many people go to great lengths to try to see this event after hearing about its existence. Erich Rohmer made a film in which the green ray is the sign a young woman waits for to tell her she has found true love. You can see how a person in the audience could take that powerful visual event in nature and assign it to his or her emotional needs. The green ray might signify in a modern, urban sense that now is the time to "green light" a particular decision.
Green light lies right between blue and yellow in the visible light spectrum yet is seldom seen in the sky. The blue light of the sky and the yellow and oranges of sunset tend to dominate the narrow green frequency band. Conditions have to be just right to get the proper refraction. One instance where green can be seen very well is in the Northern Lights of the arctic circle.
Nordlys: the Northern Lights
Arctic circle, Norway.
The green ray occuring at sunset is the subject of travelers' and beachcombers' tall tales. In Rohmer's movie, the green ray is photographed at sunset, over water, when the sun is a perfect round disc. As it sets, we see the red disc of the sun become a small crescent, which is, astonishingly, green.
One day when I was coming off the beach at sunset, I noticed the sun was sinking directly over the water. I had never seen this on the east coast, and supposed there was always land in the way of a completely visible sunset. The Rockaway sandbar curves away to the northwest just enough to let the sun hit the water in the west.
Watching it settle into the Atlantic got me thinking about that green ray. Would I see it this time? I never saw it in countless sunsets in coastal California. The sun became a small arc with some clouds rising from it. They changed from yellow to greenish yellow. As I looked up I noticed a green tint in the sky, especially on the clouds. It seemed to be cast everywhere, this green shade. There was no green crescent at the top of the sun, however.
I wondered if I was seeing things. Perhaps I was staring at the red sun so much that my eyes saw the color opposite, like those optical illusion postcards of a green, yellow, and black flag. You stare at the middle black star for a minute and see old glory in true colors before your eyes when you look away.
I don't believe I was looking for any sign or trying to relate it to any events in my life. I was only interested in the event itself, and the believability of my own senses. I took a couple of pictures just as the sun went down. I wondered if the sky was always a little green at sunset like this, with a few clouds over water. Or was I under the spell of my own recollection?
Greens come out of the yellows and blues at sunset
