Stunned south Londoners reported seeing a bizarre optical phenomenon in the sky on Sunday (April 14).
‘Sun halos’ were snapped by gawping passers-by in Camberwell and Brixton.
The rare event is caused by light interacting with ice crystals contained in high-flying cirrus clouds.
Steve Von Heartel, amazed by the 2pm sighting on Camberwell Grove, said: “It’s real. I stopped a woman in the street and asked her if she could see what I was looking at.
“Oddly, at first she said no. I showed her my photo and then looked up again. She did see it.”
The 61-year-old added: “My advice is to look up at the sky we miss so much.”
The phenomenon happens when clouds are very high in the sky so create ice crystals.
Sunlight, or moonlight, hits them to create a halo, the Met Office says.
If the sunlight hits the ice crystals at a particular angle, some light can be refracted causing “faint colouration” and a noticeable rainbow.
A commenter on the social media site NextDoor said: “Great photos! I saw the sun halo but noticed it was easier to see if you were wearing sunglasses.”
Another said: “That is beautiful well done on capturing it.”
The Met Office says: ”Halos happen when we have cloud really high up in the atmosphere – it’s ice crystals and the sun is reflected on them,” said a spokesperson for the Met Office. The majority of ice crystals are hexagonal.”