Triple Sunrise Illusion

Here is another illusion found on the Astronomy Picture of the Day. I stumbled upon it via Tricks and Illusions.

Triple Sunrise
Credit & Copyright: Jim Hoida

Explanation: Today, the Sun rises due east at the Equinox, a geocentric astronomical event that occurs twice a year. To celebrate, consider this view of the rising Sun and a lovely set of ice halos recorded on a cold winter morning near Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA, planet Earth. Produced by sunlight shining through common atmospheric ice crystals with hexagonal cross-sections, such halos can actually be seen more often than rainbows. The remarkable sunrise picture captures a beautiful assortment of the types most frequently seen, including a sun pillar (center) just above the rising Sun surrounded by a 22 degree halo arc. Completing a triple sunrise illusion, sundogs appear at the far left and far right edges of the 22 degree arc. An upper tangent arc is also just visible at the very top of the view.

Erik Axdahl
(c)2005
Erik has a blog called The Chronicles of Spaceman Axdahl and he had this to say about this photo he shot.

"I was poking through my hard drive and found this delicious morsel that I took last Winter outside of New Ulm, MN with my four year-old Canon Powershot A20 digicam.

What you see is a parhelion, better known as sun dogs.

Sun dogs are produced when the clouds between the Sun and the observer contain ice crystals rather than droplets. They always occur at twenty-two degrees on either side of the sun.

Being a nerd, when I first saw this I panicked and honked madly at the car I was following to pull over so I could take this shot. My day was then officially made."

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Spot the Fish Optical Illusion

I love this little animated image (found here). It illustrates how camouflage works in nature. When the little critters are moving they can be seen but often when they are still they blend into the background and seemingly disappear.



Below is an image taken by Dory English he calls "Spot The Fish". Dory sent this to me after he saw this post on camouflage optical illusions in nature.

Can you spot the fish? This is an example of once an animal that uses camouflage for protection comes to rest it is very difficult to see.


Spot The Fish
©Dory English used w/permission
click for large image
move mouse over image for solution

My 11 year old daughter assisted my old eyes in spotting this fish. She even suggested That I outline it so it would be easier for you to find, but what fun would that be? Let me just say that the fish is positioned tail left, head right and the yellow dot is the eye of the fish. Update: I took my daughter's advice, just move your mouse over the image for the solution.

This fish while moving (like the animated image above) can be seen easily, but once it comes to rest it blends into it's environment and is very hard to spot.

This is an excellent example of Mother Nature employing an optical illusion to protect one of her own. Thanks Dory for sending this to me and allowing it's inclusion in this gallery of illusions.

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Under The Sea

This is not an optical illusion but it is too cool to pass up. This restaurant doesn't give you the illusion of the sea with a large aquarium, they actually place you five meters below the surface, smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The Maldives | 15 April marks the day that the first ever all-glass undersea restaurant in the world opens its doors for business at the Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa. Ithaa will sit five meters below the waves of the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a vibrant coral reef and encased in clear acrylic offering diners 270-degrees of panoramic underwater views.

“Our guests always comment on being blown away by the colour, clarity, and beauty of the underwater world in the Maldives, so it seemed the perfect idea to build a restaurant where diners can experience fine cuisine and take time to enjoy the views – without ever getting their feet wet.”

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Nature's Largest Optical Illusion

I came across this image while checking out some posters and couldn't pass up including Nature's Illusion on this site.

According to 4th grade science an iceberg shows just 1/10th of itself above water. This means that the sailor of days gone yore never had any idea how large of a chunk of ice existed below the surface.

This particular image has a history to go with it. Since the image presented here was a little small I decided to search the net to see if I could get a larger image. One site said the following about this image.

"This photo came from a Rig Manager for Global Marine Drilling in St. Johns, Newfoundland. They actually have to divert the path of these things away from the rig by towing them with ships!

Anyway, in this particular case the water was calm & the sun was almost directly overhead so that the diver was able to get into the water and click this pic. They estimated the weight at 300,000,000 tons."

This story didn't ring true to me so I investigated further. Not surprisingly it turns out that this photograph is a composite created in 1999 by Ralph A. Clevenger a professional nature and underwater photographer who's had work published by the National Geographic, and is on the faculty of the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA. The artist says this about his creation.

"I created the image as a way of illustrating the concept of what you get is not necessarily what you see. As a professional photographer, I knew that I couldn't get an actual shot of an iceberg the way I envisioned it, so I created the final image by compositing several images I had taken. The two halves of the iceberg are 2 separate shots, one taken in Alaska and one taken in Antarctica (neither is underwater). The only underwater part is the background taken off the coast of California. The sky is the last component. It took a lot of research on lighting and scale to get the berg to look real."

The story of this image ended up being much more enjoyable then I would have anticipated. If you enjoy this image you can click on it to check out the poster.

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Optical Illusions used by Plants and Animals

Optical illusions are survivor mechanisms for many plants and animals. We are all familiar with the chameleon. Presented here is the chameleon and other various examples of animals and plants using optical illusions to survive.

With its distinctive shape, ponderous movements and tiny eyes at the ends of conical turrets, the chameleon is an unmistakable reptile. Its ability to change colour is very well known, but this is not done to match its background as commonly believed - although that may happen coincidentally - but as a means of communication and to regulate body temperature.

If you surprise a chameleon, it will inflate its body, open its mouth to reveal it bright orange palette, hiss, and lunge forward. Such behavior is intended to surprise and confuse any attacker, giving the chameleon time to make an escape and utilize its superb camouflage against the foliage of a shrub or tree. Although slow-moving when under observation - they walk slowly to avoid detection - chameleons are actually able to scamper quite quickly when being pursued. The ferocious defensive behavior of these little lizards led to the ancient Greeks naming them 'Dwarf Lions' - 'Chamai leons'.

Twigs or Walking Sticks?

With special resemblance, animals use a combination of color, shape and behavior to help them appear like something in their habitat. They are simply mistaken for something else. The walking stick is a great example. This insect becomes almost invisible due to the shape of its body, its coloration and its slow movement. It looks and acts just like a twig on a bush or tree..

Plants or Rocks

Living stones also known as Lithops are plants that survive by looking like rocks in Southern Africa's deserts where they have become highly adapted to conditions of extreme heat and drought.

Twig or Caterpillar?

Which one is the caterpillar, and which is the twig? A close look at the bottom feet of the twig on the left shows that it is really a small caterpillar, which freezes itself into a rigid posture when predators are near! This ability enables it to escape detection by birds (but pays for its cleverness by occasionally having some other insect lay eggs on it by mistake).

Hiding as a Dead Leaf?

The katydid above hides on the forest floor. It has a perfect disguise... it resembles a dead leaf, veins and all!

For more examples of animals using camouflage go to this site.

The Duck Blind?

All of these examples above are nice but the ultimate example of an animal using an optical illusion is the duck in the below picture. Hunters have been using decoys for years it was just a matter of time until the ducks turned the table on them.

This last animal optical illusion was found over on Tasty Blog.

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Snow Illusions

There are many illusion forms that snow can take. Calvin is a master of the snow illusion as demonstrated below in Calvin's "Snowman House of Horror" and his "Swimmer and the Snow Sharks".

"Snowman House of Horror"

"Swimmer and the Snow Sharks"

Of course these illusions can be created in real snow also. Below they have had to rope off an area to keep people away from the rare snow lizard.

Of course you have to watch out for those giant snow big wheels. This one might have hurt someone. They were lucky this time but really parents have to watch their kids closer.

The real illusion of snow can be seen clearly in this snow scene. Not the fact that Bambi's father's spirit can be found watching over him, but the blanket of white snow that covers everything.

Snow itself is the true illusion. We walk in it, play in it and shovel it off of our driveways. The whole time we are under the spell of the illusion of snow. What do we see? White, piles and piles of white fluffy snow. The truth is snow is not white, it is composed of billions of snow flakes each one a unique work of art. You can see how these snowflake photographs were taken by going to this site.

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