Nice looking rainbow huh?! Well, nice it is, rainbow it's not. This one is known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, which caused by plate-shaped ice crystals floating in the air. This particular rare sight was caught on film last June 3 of this year at the northern part of Idaho, near the Washington State border.

But to let it become visible the sun has to be very high in the sky. Only at sun elevations of 57.8° (90 -32.2°) or more it shows up as a colourful line along the horizon on the same side of the sky where the sun is. With the sun the circumhorizontal arc also gets higher and at a sun elevation of 67.9° it reaches its maximum intensity. The hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

This particular occurrence of a circumhorizontal arc in Idaho panned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour, according to the London Daily Mail.

London newspaper The Times is holding a photography contest! Basically, it's a contest wherein each entry must be a photograph taken using camphone and must be the original work of the author and not previously published.

Although prize winners must be residents of the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland (ROI), entries from other locations will be considered for publication in The Times or on Times Online, but will not be eligible for prizes. But if you just want some exposure then go ahead and join.

The judges will also select a weekly winner whose entry will be published in the Times Online. Each weekly winner will receive either a K750i or K800i mobile handset. All entries must be in before November 2, 2006. From those weekly winners, the judges will again select one to be the monthly winner. From the monthly winners, a grand winner will be selected.

The prizes? The overall winner will receive a day with one of The Times's top photographers, an all-expenses-paid trip to a European city (the trip includes a six-night stay in a European city, flights, accommodation and transfers) and entry into the International Imaging Competition in association with Sony Ericsson. Nice!

For the full terms and conditions of the contest, click on the 'Read' link.