One of the delights of visitors to Fort Bragg (CA) are the sunsets. Sunsets are not talked about in the visitor guides to this part of the world but visitors to our Model Railroad layout sure talk about them when we have a cracker. There are several great spots: Mendocino Main Street looking out over Mendo Bay, atop the Pudding Creek Trestle and at the end of the boardwalk at McKerricher State Park to name just a very few. These shots were (as usual) gathered from hither and yon but most came from the Facebook page, “You know you’re from Mendocino if ……”
Pillocks please be advised we are (a) NOT talking about a brand of beer (there is a Green Flash Brewery) and (b) NOT talking about a strain of pot. No sirree Bob, we are talking about serious stuff here. We’re talking about something that is rarer than hens teeth.
Wiki says, “Green flashes are optical phenomena that sometimes occur right after sunset or right before sunrise. When the conditions are right, a green spot is visible above the upper rim of the disk of the sun. The green appearance usually lasts for no more than a second or two. VERY rarely, the green flash can resemble a green ray shooting up from the sunset (or sunrise) point. Green flashes occur because the atmosphere can cause the light from the sun to separate out into different colors. While observing at the Vatican Observatory D.K.J. O’Connell produced the first color photographs of a green flash at sunset in 1960 . No pics of green ray seem to exist.
I got into Green Flashes whilst talking to a man whose English wife I had met in Safeway buying a dozen bottles of whisky (“I don’t drink – it’s for friends back home – it’s much cheaper here”). He was a photographer he told me. He proved this by hauling out of the boot of their car a camera bag containing a digital Hasselblad (they use ’em in space) with a motor back. Like, I mean, expensive man. He said they were back in Fort Bragg ‘cos the last time he was here he had photographed a green flash. I was MEGA impressed.
So, at our club’s (Mendocino Coast Model Railroad & Historical Society) Wednesday morning brekkers i asked those in my immediate vicinity if they had ever seen the green flash. They all knew what it was but none had ever witnessed one. Well I have been trolling ’round the ‘net and here’s waht I have come up with …….. First a vid which shows just how lucky or quick you have to capture a green flash on “film”:
