Here's a photograph of something a little different from me. This colourful looking abstract is of a rainbow in a cloud!

It's actually a weather phenomenon known as Cloud Iridescence.

It occurs when tiny ice crystals or water droplets group together in the air. When sunlight shines through them, they cause the light to be diffracted (spread out), which results in these rainbow like effects. Pretty neat eh?

The phenomenon is apparently quite rare, which explains why I've never seen it before!

So, for introducing me to a new weather event, and for educating me about how rainbows can appear within clouds, I'm making this colourful abstract shot my Image of the Week...