reflective rainbow captured over Derry today by coastposts.ie — **reflective rainbow captured over Derry today by** **coastposts.ie**

Check out this amazing rainbow captured in Co,Derry today by coastposts.ie . This type of rainbow is called a reflective rainbow

Reflection rainbows do not mirror the primary rainbow—they often appear to stretch above it. Reflected Rainbow. A reflected rainbow appears directly on the surface of a body of water. A reflected rainbow is created by rays of light reflected by the water surface, after the rays have have passed through water droplets

So it’s not a triple rainbow. Instead, the person caught what’s called a reflection rainbow, which can be caused by sunlight beaming upward after reflecting from wet sand or calm water. In this case, the reflection rainbow is coming from the water of the River Foyle near Craigavon bridge.

The centres of reflection bows are at the same altitude as the sun - the anthelic point. This is the same distance above the horizon as the centres of normal bows are below it at the antisolar point. The normal bow and its corresponding reflection bow intersect at the horizon.

Reflection bows are usually brightest when the sun is low because then its light is reflected most strongly from water surfaces. The normal and reflection bows draw closer together as the sun gets lower.

The source of the reflected light is usually water behind you, i.e. sunwards. It can be in front of you but then only the base of the reflected bow will be seen.