{"id":15798,"date":"2025-07-27T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/?p=15798"},"modified":"2025-07-28T09:06:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T01:06:14","slug":"2025-july-27-the-oval-glowing-disk-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/2025\/07\/2025-july-27-the-oval-glowing-disk-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 July 27 &#8211; The Oval Glowing Disk Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Bandar Seri Begawan &#8211; As the Sun<\/strong> dips low over Brunei\u2019s coastal horizon today, it sheds its perfect circle. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Sun appears oval or squashed near the horizon due to atmospheric refraction &#8211; a fascinating optical effect caused by Earth\u2019s layered atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This visual distortion is due to sunlight travels through a thicker slice of the atmosphere at sunset compared to midday. This dense path bends (refracts) the light unevenly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Refraction lifts the lower limb, compressing the golden disk into an ethereal ellipse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29250727_sun_faisaltuah.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"672\" src=\"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29250727_sun_faisaltuah-1024x672.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29250727_sun_faisaltuah-1024x672.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29250727_sun_faisaltuah-300x197.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29250727_sun_faisaltuah-768x504.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29250727_sun_faisaltuah-1536x1008.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/29250727_sun_faisaltuah.jpeg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u25b2 <em>Sunset at Tanjong Batu on Jul 26, 2025 at 6:31 p.m. [Settings: Fujifilm XT3 100-400mm Lens + 1.4X extender, 840mm, ss 1\/500 f10 iso160, handheld] (Photo by by Faisal Tuah) <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/20250726_sun_refraction.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/20250726_sun_refraction.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15801\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/20250726_sun_refraction.jpg 960w, https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/20250726_sun_refraction-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/20250726_sun_refraction-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u25b2 <em>The sun appears oval at sunrise and sunset but appears circular at noon is best explained by phenomenon called refraction.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bandar Seri Begawan &#8211; As the Sun dips low over Brunei\u2019s coastal horizon today, it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[493,93,494],"class_list":["post-15798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gallery","tag-refraction","tag-sun","tag-sunset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruneiastronomy.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}