Partial solar eclipse shadow bands?

[alexch (Alex)]

I was at Uluru during the partial/annular solar eclipse and had to drive back before the last contact. There were some patchy clouds covering the Sun and I noticed quite peculiar bands of shadows above the Olgas and Ayers Rock when driving back.

I attached a quick snap of the effect taken May 9th 2013, 23:19 UTC (37 minutes before the last contact), the camera is pointing roughly south and the Sun is beyond the left-hand side of the image. Are these the shadow bands produced by the "pinhole" effect in the clouds?

I'll post more images when I get back home (driving a motorhome with the family) at the end of May and get a chance to process them.
Cheers,
Alex

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

Very intriguing effect Alex. Will be interested to hear what others think.......

[Peter Ward]

I'd say its simply shadow from the fair weather cloud you can see...looks to be at about 6000 feet.

[StephenM (Stephen)]

Looks interesting Alex. I don't think it can be shadow bands though, because my understanding is that these are caused by atmospheric refraction of the very thin solar crescent (which is why they are only seen in the moments before and after totality).The shadow bands that result from this refraction will always be parallel with the long axis of the thin crescent The ones I captured last November were much thinner than what you have here.

Where is the sun in this image? Could it just be cloud shadows being cast on the hazy atmosphere?

Cheers,
Stephen

[Paul Haese]

Looks like crespular rays to me. Nice shot though.

[alexch (Alex)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

I'd say its simply shadow from the fair weather cloud you can see...looks to be at about 6000 feet.

Yes, I agree - it looks like the shadow from the clouds. Peter, do you see them often from the air?

I did not think these were crepuscular rays because they showed as darker bands in the sky rather than lighter rays shining through the gaps in the clouds. Showing the crescent Suns through a lattice to my daughters made me think maybe that was a 'pinhole" effect through the clouds that we were seeing but wasn't sure.

Cheers,
Alex

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

I would say they are shadows, caused from the clouds shadow in the atmosphere. Similar to shadows caused by contrails by high altitude aircraft, except these are caused by the clouds.