Rare photo captured out of helicopter

One social media user captured a vivid double rainbow that appeared in the sky over Charleston, West Virginia, on October 7. Footage posted to X by @Ki11ersix shows the double rainbow they said they spotted in south Charleston on Saturday afternoon. A man in Queens, New York, also spotted a double rainbow on Saturday afternoon following a day of heavy rain. Credit: @Ki11ersix via Storyful

The St Athan-based National Police Air Service (NPAS) South West & Wales Region unit managed to capture the rare phenomenon over the Vale of Glamorgan, a county borough in the southeast of Wales.

They shared a snap of the stunning full circle rainbow to X, formerly Twitter.

“Afternoon all. A great photo taken from ^DJ earlier today after assisting @swpolice

@SWPSwansea,” the caption read.

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The photo was taken by the crew of the police helicopter based at St Athan in Wales.

“This is insane!!!!” a weather and storm chaser account from the UK tweeted.

A rainbow is a multi-coloured arc made by light striking water droplets.

And they are actually full circles. It’s just rare to see them from the ground because in most cases your view is obscured.

“The antisolar point is the centre of the circle. Viewers in aircraft can sometimes see these circular rainbows,” according to National Geographic.

“Viewers on the ground can only see the light reflected by raindrops above the horizon. “Because each person’s horizon is a little different, no one actually sees a full rainbow from the ground.”

In fact, no one sees the same rainbow, the magazine reports.

“Each person has a different antisolar point, each person has a different horizon. Someone who appears below or near the ‘end’ of a rainbow to one viewer will see another rainbow, extending from his or her own horizon.”

A rainbow is actually an optical-illusion — it does not actually exist in a specific spot in the sky.

“The appearance of a rainbow depends on where you’re standing and where the sun (or other source of light) is shining,” National Geographic explains.

“The sun or other source of light is usually behind the person seeing the rainbow. In fact, the centre of a primary rainbow is the antisolar point, the imaginary point exactly opposite the sun.”

Back in 2016, a skydiver was able to capture a 360 degree double-rainbow on camera after her jumped out of a plane 4800 metres in the air over the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.

The photos was shared to Reddit and naturally left people in awe.