Headed out to Maldives or Santorini to catch a beautiful sunset? Think twice – Mana rain washed Hyderabad sky turned all crimson and yellow and orange last evening when the sun suddenly shone through the crevices in the clouds and decided to bewitch us with its stunning glorious hues.
For those who were lucky to catch a glimpse, it was a treat of sorts – an unfolding drama brought about by the Sun God in his mischievous mood – his rays capriciously touching the array of clouds, the tip of the minarets, random domes in the distance and the city outlines and making them explode into a riot of colours. A double rainbow shot up as if to claim its space and prove its authority on colours.
Everywhere people came out into the open, stopping by on the roadside, on rooftops and from wherever they could, to get a clear view of the spectacle caused by the play of colours.
Lockdowns, Monsoons and a virus can be rightfully credited for the perfect Instagram skies not only in Hyderabad but the all over the country.
It is interesting to note that such a blast of colours is possible due to our own inabilities – it is us humans who due to our sensory constraints perceive only the longer light waves like the red ones while the blues with shorter wave length scatter away.
Simple Science Behind Sunset Colours
Light ray is made up of seven colours. Being the trichomats that we are, we experience colour through three types of photoreceptors tuned to different wavelengths: short (blue), medium (green), and long (red) – and the combinations of activity of these receptors give us the perception of colour. Human eye is sensitive to a very tiny part of the total spectrum of the sun’s wavelengths, which makes us see Sunsets the way we do. In fact there are more colours and more magic to sunsets than meets the human eye. There are animals which can see the ultraviolet area of the spectrum. So a butterfly or a reindeer, which can perceive ultraviolet light, might be seeing a different, perhaps more colourful sunset than we do
So enjoy your sunsets while they last.
