View high resolution
Anticrepuscular rays
“Similar to crepuscular rays, but seen opposite the sun in the sky. Sunlight travels in straight lines, but the projections of these lines on Earth’s spherical atmosphere are great circles. Hence, straight-line crepuscular rays from a setting (or rising) sun can appear to re-converge at the antisolar point. Anticrepuscular rays are most frequently visible near sunrise or sunset.
Although anticrepuscular rays appear to converge onto a point opposite the sun, the convergence is actually an illusion. The rays are in fact (almost) parallel, and the apparent convergence is to the vanishing point at infinity.” - Wikipedia
Pictured above is a particularly striking set of anticrepuscular rays photographed in 2001 from a moving car just outside of Boulder, Colorado, USA.
