Many readers have commented on the photo earlier this week.We’ve all seen this illusion on the horizon, but I’m not sure what causes it. What’s the explanation? Thanks in advance!
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It’s the same effect as seeing a mirage on the road. See here: http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/simulations/inf-mir/Kaplan_photos.html
Thanks Rob!
Isn’t that was is called a “loom”? It’s a type of optical illusion caused by mist and fog.
It might be a loom (http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/history/artmirge.htm). But we could be directly viewing the buildings. The tallest is Hancock Place, 790 feet tall (per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Boston), which means that from it, we could see 34.4 miles (per http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm), and as the crow flies, it’s only about 30 miles to Boston. Going back to that list of tallest buildings, I figure there’s about 16 buildings in the skyline photo that are visible, which puts the lowest one at about 500 feet, which would be visible out to about 28 miles.
It’s possible that there’s a loom effect going on, but I would expect that different weather conditions to change the amount that the skyline is elevated, but in my experience, the Boston skyline doesn’t get taller or shorter – it’s just either visible or obscured.
But I could be wrong.
Thanks Rob; I thought it was a loose nut behind the camera.
HEY!!!!
It’s caused by too much Beer before you push take the shot. :0
It is indeed a mirage, a refraction of light:
A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning “to look at, to wonder at”. This is the same root as for “mirror” and “to admire”.
Like a mirror, a mirage shows images of things which are elsewhere. The principal physical cause of a mirage, however, is refraction rather than reflection.
In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon which can be captured on camera, since light rays actually are refracted to form the false image at the observer’s location. What the image appears to represent, however, is determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind. For example, inferior images on land are very easily mistaken for the reflections from a small body of water.
Nice! Art and science with my morning coffee!