Our cover picture ...
… shows Brocken spectres of mountaineers in rising wisps of fog at the Kampenwand in the Chiemgau Alps, photographed by Claudia Hinz in September 2019. However, this is not the "usual" Brocken spectre, namely the shadow cast opposite the Sun onto a wall of droplets (clouds or fog). Instead, these shadowy ghosts were seen in the direction of the Sun. From this perspective, shadows can only appear if there are very thin clouds between the observer’s eye and the object casting the shadow, which let sunlight through but can still form the shadow image. The object is then, so to speak, the obstacle that blocks the light in these areas on its way to the observer’s eye.
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