dawn2dawn photography

This image I shot at Point Lobos at Carmel, California shows a distorted sun at sunset. The top of the solar disc is a mirage, an optical phenomenon in which distant objects may seem distorted. Mirages of this type occur at high latitudes when a warm layer of air rests on a cold layer. The light rays coming from an object (here the Sun) are bent down from the warm layer producing the distorted image. And by the way, the sun appears red at sunset because of particulates in the atmosphere (which the suns rays must travel through at sunset) cause blue light to scatter and leaving the sun red.