Hard To Identify, Even Harder To Pronounce

The conditions that kept me from photographing the planet Mercury in the west sky at twilight on Sunday, July 8, 2012, actually created this optical phenomena in which I believe is known as a Crepuscular Ray. I had observed a long arching blue shaft (top image) in the northwest sky that I originally thought might be some kind of a precursor to an impending Aurora Borealis display or something of that nature.  Crepuscular (meaning twilight) Rays, also known as God Rays, are rays of sunlight that appear to radiate from a single point in the sky. These rays, which stream through gaps in clouds (which in this case obscured Mercury) or between other objects, are columns of sunlit air separated by darker cloud-shadowed regions. The rays are so pronounced because of the contrasts of light and dark at this hour. This images were photographed at 9:10 and 9:18 PM, and look over East Robins Road from just west of Christ Community United Methodist Church in Marion, Iowa.