Abstract
IN NATURE of October 14, p. 513, Prof. Alfred Porter maintains that there are two distinct phenomena which go under the name of the green flash, and that the one most usually seen is an after image in an eye fatigued by the red light of the sun. I have seen the green ray many times in this country and in the tropics, and the phenomenon as I have seen it is always exactly the same; I am quite convinced in my own mind that it is not due to eye fatigue, for the appearance at sunrise is precisely the same as that at sunset; I have seen it a number of times at sunrise, and the first time I ever saw it was at sunrise when I was not looking out for it. I have, moreover, examined the setting sun with binoculars and with a telescope; when the sun has very nearly set, but before the appearance of the green ray proper, the upper edge has a very irregular shape owing to refraction effects, sometimes resembling flames; the tops of these “flames” gradually become bright green and the colour spreads downwards till the whole of the minute remaining part of the disc becomes green. To any one who has examined the green ray with a telescope at sunset, and has seen it with the naked eye at sunrise, it seems inconceivable that it can be due to eye fatigue.
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CAVE, C. The Green Raylat Sunset and Sunrise. Nature 110, 604 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110604b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110604b0
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