From Wikipedia:

Beachy Head is a chalk headland in East Sussex, England. It is situated close to Eastbourne, immediately east of the Seven Sisters.

Beachy Head is located within the administrative area of Eastbourne Borough Council which owns the land, forming part of the Eastbourne Downland Estate. The cliff is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m (531 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast towards Dungeness in the east, and to the Isle of Wight in the west.

LB&SCR H2 class 4-4-2 steam locomotive number 424 (later B424, 2424, and 32424) was named Beachy Head after this landmark.

Image Details
Date: 2 July 2026
Camera body: Nikon D50
Lens: Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6G ED
Focal Length: 55mm
Aperture: ƒ/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1,600s
ISO: 200
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/359s
ISO: 25
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

This view is from the end of Haldon Pier and shows Princess Pier in the foreground.

The weather was poor, with squally wind and rain. I only noticed the rainbow when I viewed on the desktop.

Image details
Date: 17 September 2025
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/24s
ISO: 800
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Image details
Date: 17 September 2025
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/4,464s
ISO: 25
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Image details
Date: 17 September 2025
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/4,464s
ISO: 25
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Dartmouth (/ˈdɑːrtməθ/) is a town and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the western bank of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes. It lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and South Hams district, and had a population of 5,512 in 2001, reducing to 5,064 at the 2011 census. There are two electoral wards in the Dartmouth area (Townstal & Kingswear). Their combined population at the above census was 6,822.

Image details
Date: 15 September 2025
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/17,857s
ISO: 25
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Image details
Date: 17 November 2024
Camera body: Nikon D50
Lens: Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6G ED
Focal Length: 55mm
Aperture: ƒ/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200s
ISO: 400
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Image Details
Date: 10 June 2024
Camera body: Nikon D50
Lens: Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6G ED
Focal Length: 23mm
Aperture: ƒ/5
Shutter Speed: 1/1,250s
ISO: 200
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

From Wikipedia

A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French (se) mirer, from the Latin mirari, meaning “to look at, to wonder at”.

Mirages can be categorised as “inferior” (meaning lower), “superior” (meaning higher) and “Fata Morgana”, one kind of superior mirage consisting of a series of unusually elaborate, vertically stacked images, which form one rapidly changing mirage.

In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon that can be captured on camera, since light rays are actually refracted to form the false image at the observer’s location. What the image appears to represent, however, is determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind. For example, inferior images on land are very easily mistaken for the reflections from a small body of water. A superior mirage is one in which the mirage image appears to be located above the real object. A superior mirage occurs when the air below the line of sight is colder than the air above it. This unusual arrangement is called a temperature inversion. During the daytime, the normal temperature gradient of the atmosphere is cold air above warm air. Passing through the temperature inversion, the light rays are bent down, and so the image appears above the true object, hence the name superior.

Superior mirages are quite common in polar regions, especially over large sheets of ice that have a uniform low temperature. Superior mirages also occur at more moderate latitudes; however, in those cases, they are weaker and tend to be less smooth and stable. For example, a distant shoreline may appear to tower and look higher (and, thus, perhaps closer) than it really is. Because of the turbulence, there appear to be dancing spikes and towers. This type of mirage is also called the Fata Morgana, or hafgerðingar in the Icelandic language.

A superior mirage can be right-side up or upside-down, depending on the distance of the true object and the temperature gradient. Often, the image appears as a distorted mixture of up and down parts.

Since the earth is round, if the downward bending curvature of light rays is about the same as the curvature of Earth, light rays can travel large distances, including from beyond the horizon. This was observed and documented in 1596, when a ship in search of the Northeast passage became stuck in the ice at Novaya Zemlya, above the Arctic Circle. The Sun appeared to rise two weeks earlier than expected; the real Sun was still visible below the horizon, but its light rays followed the curvature of Earth. This effect is often called a Novaya Zemlya mirage. For every 111.12 kilometres (69.05 mi) that light rays travel parallel to Earth’s surface, the Sun will appear 1° higher on the horizon. The inversion layer must have just the right temperature gradient over the whole distance to make this possible.

In the same way, ships that are so far away that they should not be visible above the geometric horizon may appear on or even above the horizon as superior mirages. This may explain some stories about flying ships or coastal cities in the sky, as described by some polar explorers. These are examples of so-called Arctic mirages, or hillingar in Icelandic.

If the vertical temperature gradient is +12.9 °C (23.2 °F) per 100 meters/330 feet (where the positive sign means the temperature increases at higher altitudes) then horizontal light rays will just follow the curvature of Earth, and the horizon will appear flat. If the gradient is less (as it almost always is), the rays are not bent enough and get lost in space, which is the normal situation of a spherical, convex “horizon”.

In some situations, distant objects can be elevated or lowered, stretched or shortened with no mirage involved.

Image details
Date: 24 February 2024
Camera body: Nikon D50
Lens: Tamron 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.0-5.6
Focal Length: 125mm
Aperture: ƒ/5
Shutter Speed: 1/1,250s
ISO: 200
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

From Wikipedia

Bidean nam Bian (Scottish Gaelic: Bidean nam Beann, “peak of the mountains”)[3] is the highest peak in a group of mountains south of Glen Coe and north of Glen Etive in the Scottish Highlands. With a height of 1,150 metres (3,770 ft), it is a Munro and the highest point in Argyll. It is a complex mountain with many ridges and subsidiary peaks, one of which, Stob Coire Sgreamhach, is classified as a separate Munro.

The most noticeable features of the Bidean nam Bian massif are the famous Three Sisters of Glen Coe, three steeply-sided ridges that extend north into the Glen. Two of the sisters, Gearr Aonach (‘short ridge’) and Aonach Dubh (‘black ridge’) converge at Stob Coire nan Lochan, a 1,115-metre (3,658 ft) subsidiary peak of Bidean nam Bian that lies about 1km to the northeast of the actual summit. The final, most easterly sister, Beinn Fhada (‘long mountain’), joins the Bidean nam Bian massif at the summit of Stob Coire Sgreamhach.

Beinn Fhada is separated from Gearr Aonach by a glen known as Coire Gabhail (‘glen of the capture’), often known as the ‘Hidden’ or ‘Lost Valley’, as it has a wide flat area concealed from Glen Coe by the landslip which blocked the entrance and allowed a loch to form. The glen was used by Clan MacDonald to hide their livestock from raiders or hide cattle they themselves had stolen. The steep rough path up from Glen Coe skirts a wooded ravine and is a popular short walk (around 4 kilometres or 2+1⁄2 miles in total), though it involves a river crossing and some rocky sections.

Image details
Date: 10 February 2024
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/360s
ISO: 25
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International