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Re: moonlight



See the discussion and diagrams on pages 66-68 in
"What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks" by Craig Bohren.

The chapter "Highway Mirages" also has a nice discussion of the other
mirages besides the dry "wet" highway.

Larry Woolf;General Atomics;San Diego CA
92121;Ph:858-526-8575;FAX:858-526-8568; www.ga.com; www.sci-ed-ga.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Kilmer, Skip
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 7:11 AM
Subject: moonlight

When one sees moonlight reflected from the surface of a lake, if the =
water is at all disturbed, the disk is stretched into a line. I've al=
ways thought of this as diffuse reflection from the rippled surface, =
and as I think about it, I can't satisfy myself why the light should =
be concentrated "beneath" the moon. Why don't the randomly directed s=
urface ripples make it just as likely that light hitting off to the s=
ide would reflect into our eyes?