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About Paraselene

About Paraselene

When I launched Paraselene with its hundred pages dedicated to astrophotography and atmospheric optics in January 2003, I could not foresee that it would one day comprise a thousand pages in two languages.  What was originally planned was a way to share my best photographs taken between April 2000 and December 2002. Since that early start the scope has broadened and many extra sections have been added. In the last few years the shortcomings of the site navigation and the need for a better search function became more than obvious and a complete relaunch seemed the best solution. Besides many new pages, the most important articles and images of the old site will be added little by little. Most of the images will be reformatted. All this cannot be achieved at once, so that it will be a few months before the new Paraselene is complete.

Paraselene is a very personal approach to atmospheric optics and related topics. It does not claim completeness, but I hope that it does show that fascinating atmospheric phenomena can be observed nearly every day. The images are almost exclusively my own. In this sense the site may inspire visitors to make observations themselves, take their own photographs and perhaps become seriously interested in atmospheric optics.

The site is intended to be more than a gallery, it is about enjoying the beauties of nature and learning to see. A few phenomena may be rather rare where you live or not occur at all, but there will always be many others to see. Understanding these phenomena adds to their beauty.

The site aims also to offer a quick and approachable introduction when books are not available or seem difficult. I therefore not only include how and where the images were taken and processed, but also brief explanations.  In some cases, notably the 'halo' section, computer simulations have been included.  I take the opportunity to thank Dr Les Cowley, who allowed me to include simulations with his IRIS and HaloSim software created by himself and Michael Schroeder of Maine.

Enjoy the beauties of nature, and if they occur in small things, let them occur in small things, not only the diamond dust and snow canon halo displays, but also the faint Parry arc or colours on a glass from the dishwasher!