An observer may pass through the same plane as many of the falling ice crystals near sunrise or sunset. During this alignment, each crystal can act like a miniature lens, refracting sunlight into our view and creating parhelia , the technical term for sundogs. Sundogs were photographed here in a cloudy sky above the Very Large Array of radio telescopes . The real Sun is near the center above the train tracks. A bright sundog is visible on the far right, and a dim one on the far left.
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