Opposition surge
Videos
The opposition surge is the brightening of a rough surface, or an object with many particles, when illuminated from directly behind the observer. The term is most widely used in astronomy, where gener
Opposition surge from the retroreflective lunar soil brightens the area around Buzz Aldrin's shadow during Apollo 11 (photo by Neil Armstrong).
Brocken spectre
Videos
A Brocken spectre, also called Brocken bow, mountain spectre, or spectre of the Brocken, is the magnified shadow of an observer cast in midair upon any type of cloud opposite a strong light source. Th
Opposition surge
…Bidirectional reflectance function Brocken spectre, the apparently enormous and magnified shadow of an observer cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the Sun Gegenschein…
A Brocken spectre within glory rings
A semi-artificial Brocken spectre created by standing in front of the headlight of a car, on a foggy night
Illustration from Jorge Juan's and Antonio de Ulloa's, Voyage to South America (1748), depicting three separate scenes: (1) on the left, an erupting volcano; (2) on the upper right, optical glories surrounded by a fog bow; and (3) on the lower right, arcs of white light near a mountaintop
Another night Brocken spectre created by headlights of a car