While there's no science behind rainbows causing warts, some cultures believe that pointing at a rainbow brings bad luck, since at one time celestial bodies were thought of as gods, and pointing at them was deemed disrespectful.
A rainbow isn’t really a “thing” and it doesn’t exist in a particular “place.” It is an optical phenomenon that appears when sunlight and atmospheric conditions are just right—and the viewer’s position is just right to see it.
A rainbow requires water droplets to be floating in the air. That’s why we see them right after it rains. The Sun must be behind you and the clouds cleared away from the Sun for the rainbow to appear.
Sunlight is made up of many wavelengths—or colors—of light. Some of those wavelengths get bent more than others when the light enters the water droplet. Violet (the shortest wavelength of visible light) bends the most, red (the longest wavelength of visible light) bends the least.
So when the light exits the water droplet, it is separated into all its wavelengths: the light reflecting back to you, the observer with the Sunlight coming from behind you, from the water droplets will appear separated into all the colors of the rainbow! Violet will be on the bottom and red on the top.
In buzz, many people all around Puget Sound reported seeing a rainbow in wispy clouds Monday. According to the National Weather Service, this phenomenon is called a circumhorizon arc. It appears as a brilliant, rainbow-like patch of color in cirrus clouds as sunlight refracts through the ice crystals in the cloud. Read more at KING5.com.
Who doesn’t love rainbows? Rainbows are a favorite of nature photographers, and for good reason. Not only are they beautifully vibrant, representing all colors in the spectrum that can be seen by human eyes, but their graceful arcing shapes add compositional interest to photographs. But finding rainbows is a tough business, and doing them justice even tougher.
So, what is the best way to photograph a rainbow? Check out these tips to optimize your chances of getting great rainbow photos at Ianplant.com.