Talk:Rayleigh sky model

Image-text discrepancies

There are multiple places where the text discusses images/videos that are either not present, or that differ substantially from the ones present in the article. These discrepancies need to be addressed.

I hope that these discrepancies are not due to the article text having been copied from some external source, in violation of copyright.--Srleffler (talk) 06:04, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Date?

The article is missing vital information: When and in what publication did Rayleigh propose his theory? It should also be noted that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was first to study and theorize on its effects as well as those of Mie scattering in his Theory of Colours in 1810. Goethe's conclusions were basically that Rayleigh scattering (resulting in a violet-cyan spectrum) was due to light interacting with black objects (such as the blackness of space), that Mie scattering (resulting in a yellow-magenta spectrum) was due to light interacting with turbid objects (such as earth's atmosphere), and the larger the angle of the sunlight reaching us (such as during sunrise and sundown), the more it is shifted towards the Y-M spectrum because of having to cross a much larger mass of turbid atmosphere than when reaching us from above, where it has to cross a much smaller amount of turbid atmosphere. --2.240.198.214 (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Questions about the discussion

The article says that when the sun is at the zenith the plane of maximum polarization wraps around the horizon - that is certainly true. It then goes on to say that at twilight (when the sun is just below the horizon) the plane of maximum polarization is coincident with the North-Zenith-South plane. It would seem this can only be true near the equinox, when the sun rises near due east and sets near due west. At all other times of the year the plane of maximum polarization would goes through the zenith but would be tilted at an angle away from the North-Zenith-South plane equal to the angle off of the East-Zenith-West plane that the sun rises and sets. So this angle would be greatest at the solstices and would be greater the farther North or South of the equator the observer is. Things would obviously be even more complicated when the observer is within the Artic or Antartic Circle. Is this right, or am I missing something? Thanks. 206.112.75.238 (talk) 15:25, 16 January 2015 (UTC)mjd

Sorry - I see that in a later paragraph that is discussed. Might it be helpful to state in the earlier paragraph that the special case of the maximum polarization passing through the North-Zenith-South plane occurs only at the equinoxes? 206.112.75.238 (talk) 15:29, 16 January 2015 (UTC)mjd