congrats and nice one - hey yer thats one fat sun pillar!? weird looking, seems to have a second sun mirage thingy happening too? -
Phil, they arent common in non arctic latitudes, but they are very common closer to the poles I believe, like a lot of atmospherical phenonema are.
I always think of sun pillars being thinner like this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sunpillar.jpg but my mate took one recently and it was fat too??