From nighttime displays to unusual phenomena, the skies over Canada give us plenty of reasons to look up in awe. Our three-coin Sky Wonders series re-creates some of nature’s optical illusions by mixing colour and different lighting technologies. Beginning with a blacklight-activated fire rainbow, each of these three coins is a puresilver snapshot of a naturally occurring phenomenonthat is colourful, rare… and completely spellbinding.
A rainbow is welcome after any rainstorm. But in Canada, a more unusual sight in the sky is a fire rainbow... which isn't a rainbow at all! The unusual band of colours blazes across the summer sky on this coin, where our version of the optical illusion is amplified by a blacklight-activated effect.
This rare halo takes the form of a wispy, rainbow-coloured cloud or band in the sky. Unlike a true rainbow, a fire rainbow requires no rain; instead, the fair-weather phenomenon appears when the sunhangs high in the sky and the cirrus clouds align. When light passes through these high-altitude clouds, it is refracted by plate ice crystals within. These crystals act like tiny suspended prisms that produce the curious rainbow pattern seen on this coin.

Did you know?
The sun must be high in the sky – higher than 58 degrees above the horizon – to produce a fire rainbow effect. Because of this, the phenomenon isvery rare occurrence north of the 55th parallel andsouth of the equator, although the odds of seeing one in Canada are greater during the mid-summer months.

Within the cirrus clouds, the hexagonal plate ice crystals must also be aligned with their faces parallelto the ground in order to create the rainbow-like optical illusion.

SKY WONDERS - 3-COIN COMPLETE COLLECTION - 2019 CANADIAN COINS is categorised COINS AND PAPER MONEY / 08- ROYAL CANADIAN MINT / 10- FLORA, FAUNA & NATURE and sold by l'Imaginaire, a store and specialised website.