page_title: Mirage
section_title: Fata Morgana
hierarchical_section_title: Mirage / Superior mirage / Fata Morgana
caption_attribution_description: English: Sequence of Fata morgana of Farallon Islands show how Fata Morgana is changing constantly. The last two frames were photographed few hours after the first frames. Around sunset time the air is getting cooler, while the ocean might be a little bit warmer after a hot day. The lower the difference in the temperatures the lower inversion, and the mirage shown in the last two frames is not as complex as the mirage photographed around noon.
context_page_description: A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirer, from the Latin mirari, meaning "to look at, to wonder at".
  Mirages can be categorized as "inferior", "superior" and "Fata Morgana", one kind of superior mirage consisting of a series of unusually elaborate, vertically stacked images, which form one rapidly changing mirage.
  In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon that can be captured on camera, since light rays are actually refracted to form the false image at the observer's location. What the image appears to represent, however, is determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind. For example, inferior images on land are very easily mistaken for the reflections from a small body of water.
context_section_description: A Fata Morgana (the name comes from the Italian translation of Morgan le Fay, the fairy shapeshifting half-sister of King Arthur) is a very complex superior mirage. It appears with alternations of compressed and stretched areas, erect images, and inverted images. A Fata Morgana is also a fast-changing mirage.
  Fata Morgana mirages are most common in polar regions, especially over large sheets of ice with a uniform low temperature, but they can be observed almost anywhere. In polar regions, a Fata Morgana may be observed on cold days; in desert areas and over oceans and lakes, a Fata Morgana may be observed on hot days. For a Fata Morgana, temperature inversion has to be strong enough that light rays' curvatures within the inversion are stronger than the curvature of the Earth.
  The rays will bend and create arcs. An observer needs to be within an atmospheric duct to be able to see a Fata Morgana.
  Fata Morgana mirages may be observed from any altitude within the Earth's atmosphere, including from mountaintops or airplanes.
  Distortions of image and bending of light can produce spectacular effects. In his book Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the "Bismarck", Ludovic Kennedy describes an incident that allegedly took place below the Denmark Strait during 1941, following the sinking of the Hood. The Bismarck, while pursued by the British cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk, passed out of sight into a sea mist. Within a matter of seconds, the ship re-appeared steaming toward the British ships at high speed. In alarm the cruisers separated, anticipating an imminent attack, and observers from both ships watched in astonishment as the German battleship fluttered, grew indistinct and faded away. Radar watch during these events indicated that the Bismarck had in fact made no changes of course.
caption: Sequence of a Fata Morgana of the Farallon Islands as seen from San Francisco
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