More Lens Flare

I’ve posted before about lens flare impacting weather satellites, so this time it is slightly different with two images from GOES 13.

A few interesting points about this one. First off the black area at the bottom left is where the sensor was overloaded by direct sunlight,. The second is getting to see some of the world lit up which should be in darkness. This will be high level clouds lit up by Rayleigh scattering. With the blue light scattered the most, what light is left is more towards the red side of the spectrum, hence the red(ish) view.

This one was captured the same day with the lens flare from the other side of the planetary disc.

Looking at images from the days before and after, there are similar pairs of lens flare images., although the extent is changing slightly each day, no doubt as the sun is moving “northwards” as it moves between the two tropics (Cancer and Capricorn).