Clouds - rings, rays and puffs

At home and in my garden rather more than usual, I've had a chance to see some radiant skies, especially in the recent good weather. A few days ago I saw a most unusual cloud formation, not one I’ve ever seen before. It was so big I was only able to photograph part of it at a time, but I've put two of the photos together which makes the most impressive part of it a bit clearer.  

looking east

 

Combined images - sun circles above rooftop

There were two rings around the sun – it’s fairly common to see one ring round the sun – but the second one wasn’t strictly circular, more oval, as you can  possibly see from the photo – and it was rainbow-coloured, though the pink and green show most clearly. 

This coloured not-quite-circle also joined, on both sides of the sun, the larger white circle which swept around the sky – in much the same way as a ring worn round a finger joins the stone set into the ring. On both sides where it joined - though the other side didn’t really show in the photo - the cloud joins or nodes were also coloured. These  clouds are apparently called nacreous clouds, showing up as colourful because they are very high up in the sky. 

looking west - the part of the ring opposite the sun

 (Thanks to am for a link to an amazing site. It is full of images of arcs  and halos, which is what these rings are called apparently. The clearer one in the above photo is called a parahelic circle and the faint one  is called a (rare) Wegener arc. This link (atoptics.co.uk) will take you to the site where you can see a panorama of my two photos, created by Les, and you can find the complete explanation, a marvel to me, since I had no idea how these arcs and halos were formed. This site is full of awe-inspiring images from various parts of the world, and looking through them will successfully take you away from any irritating confinement-type details. The link below for example, will show you a gorgeous image of the complete formation. And there are many more, with names, information on how they are formed, etc. on Les Cowley's site.)
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And there have been other interesting cloud formations of late. Little plump pink puffs, larger white puffs and  sun rays from behind evening clouds.