[petuniasevan]

The effects depend on the shape and orientation of the ice crystals. Halos can be found around other bright objects, such as the Moon or streetlights.

More APOD halos for your enjoyment:

[petuniasevan]

[BradyLS]

Ah! I see now how the symbol for the Sun possibly came about. (A dot surrounded by a disk)

[foolish-one]

Wow! What a series of pictures to come back to! Thanks.

[RightWhale]

Those are fine examples of the phenomena. The sun dogs in the top image show only part of the full display.

There is a white spot with no color in the sky at the opposite position of the sun at the same altitude and a showshoe shaped figure tangent to the ring at the top above the sun that crosses over the top of the sky and ends up at the white spot.

The white ring horizontal to the ground goes all the way around the sky and meets the white spot opposite the sun.

Note the prismatic colors at the bright spots and note also that the interior of the ring is darker than the rest of the sky. The light for the display comes from the inside of the ring.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Beautiful pictures!

[BossyRoofer]

AWSOME! Great pictures. We have seen many of these types of pillars here in Duchesne Utah. Tonight how ever its to darn foggy to see much of anything. Great work on this site!