appears above the solar disc for a second or so. One such occurrence was taken from
Cerro Paranal. •
Dichromatism •
Gegenschein •
Iridescence •
Opposition effect •
Shadow •
Shade •
Silhouette •
Sylvanshine •
Zodiacal light Other optical effects •
Asterism, star
gems such as star
sapphire or star
ruby •
Aura, a phenomenon in which gas or dust surrounding an object luminesces or reflects light from the object •
Aventurescence, also called the Schiller effect, spangled gems such as
aventurine quartz and
sunstone •
Baily's beads, grains of sunlight visible in total solar eclipses. •
Camera obscura, an inverted projection of a scene into a dark chamber •
Cathodoluminescence •
Caustics •
Chatoyancy, cat's eye gems such as
chrysoberyl cat's eye or
aquamarine cat's eye •
Chromatic polarization •
Diffraction, the apparent bending and spreading of light
waves when they meet an obstruction •
Dispersion •
Double refraction or
birefringence of
calcite and other minerals •
Double-slit experiment •
Electroluminescence •
Evanescent wave •
Fluorescence, also called luminescence or
photoluminescence •
Mie scattering (Why clouds are white) •
Metamerism as of
alexandrite •
Moiré pattern •
Newton's rings, an alternating ring pattern created by the reflection of light between a spherical and flat surface •
Phosphorescence •
Pleochroism gems or
crystals, which seem "many-colored" •
Rayleigh scattering (Why the sky is blue, sunsets are red, and associated phenomena) •
Reflection •
Refraction •
Sonoluminescence •
Shrimpoluminescence •
Synchrotron radiation • The separation of light into colors by a
prism •
Triboluminescence •
Thomson scattering •
Total internal reflection •
Twisted light •
Umov effect •
Zeeman effect, the splitting of a
spectral line into multiple components in the presence of a
magnetic field • The ability of light to travel through space or through a vacuum.
Entoptic phenomena •
Diffraction of light through the eyelashes •
Haidinger's brush •
Monocular diplopia (or
polyplopia) from reflections at boundaries between the various
ocular media •
Phosphenes from stimulation other than by light (e.g., mechanical, electrical) of the
rod cells and
cones of the eye or of other neurons of the visual system •
Purkinje images.
Optical illusions • The unusually large size of the
Moon as it rises and sets, the
Moon illusion • The shape of the sky, the
sky bowl ==Unexplained phenomena==