unusual vertical refraction

salinas, CA

it's remarkably difficult to get pix of subtle atmospheric phenomena.  meteors, sundogs, wispy clouds, triple rainbows, et al, all lose their detail thanks to the way the brain "focuses" on an object versus what a camera "sees."

what I like about this is the picture is actually just a touch better than what I was seeing.  this image is just before sunrise and the "object" is pointing (almost?) directly down where the sun is rising.

I'm not sure what I'm looking at here.  it's not a jet trail ... I THINK it's something like a sundog -- although everything I've always called a sundog has color to it (this looks like it almost does).  the feel reminds me very much of the lines in something like a cat's eye sapphire.

I watched through sunrise and it was still visible with sun over the horizon ... eventually disappearing sometime after the complete sunrise ... I didn't see the fade, so I don't know what that was like.

I've been lucky enough to live in big sky country the vast majority of my life and pay a lot of attention to it, but I've never seen anything like this before ...

... then again, I haven't seen that many sunrises.