Mirror phenomenon — Concentric halos around eyes in a foggy bathroom

[Smilly75]

I have seen this but only in my 1 bathroom mirror, after a shower when the sun is directly behind me. It is freaky.

 

[Inthewoods]

Welcome to the PF.

So you can use Photoshop. Can you use Google Images or some other search tool to find real images of what you are asking about?

It won't photograph. Have you never seen it with your OWN eyes? Are mirrors not the same for everyone?

 

[sophiecentaur]

It won't photograph.

Why not? The only reason I can think of is that it may depend on the focal length of the lens on the camera and that can be anywhere from 500mm down to just a few mm in a smart phone camera. The eye is around 20mm focal length. Perhaps it could require a single element (cheap) lens on the camera but I can't think why.

I'm afraid (not really) that our bathroom is never so humid / cold as to cause the mirror to fog so I can't easily experiment at home.

 

[Orthoceras]

In addition, a real photo of the ring was already given in this thread:

A real photo of the ring around the camera lens of a smartphone can be seen here.

 

[berkeman]

In addition, a real photo of the ring was already given in this thread:

Still looks like Photoshop.

 

[Orthoceras]

If it looks like Photoshop to you, that's fine, you are the master of your mind.

To me it does not look like Photoshop. 1. the maker says it is a real photo, 2. this optical effect is a niche subject, uncontroversial, it is not worth the effort of photoshopping and lying about it, 3. the optical effect has been seen by many observers, 4. nobody claims it is impossible to photograph. Inthewoods' short claim "it won't photograph" is, to me, ambiguous as he provided no additional information, 5. the ring is low contrast, a photoshopper would have used more contrast. 6. The girl is looking at the screen, not at the camera, 7. the ring is correctly centered on the camera lens, not the eye.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Still looks like Photoshop.

On what grounds? What would you expect to see? The rings would be around the camera lens in the image and their diameter would not necessarily be the same as what you see directly with your eye. As I mentioned higher up, a 20mm camera lens would be representative of a human eye.
I'm surprised that the quoted image is so poor. I guess it wasn't taken by a serious enthusiast with a message (if the effect is a stunning as people claim). Obviously the image in the OP is nonsense.

 

[hutchphd]

I feel certain this is real and one of many wonderful interference phenomena involving spherical water surfaces, multiple paths, and light. It does seem to depend opon lenticular droplet size, upon having both the mirror and droplet surface, and droplet density (maybe ratio to wavelength). It does not seem to have a trivial explanation but it looks a lotlike the "glory"

 

[berkeman]

On what grounds? What would you expect to see? The rings would be around the camera lens in the image and their diameter would not necessarily be the same as what you see directly with your eye.

Ah, it looks like when I was trying to follow the link, I ended up back upthread farther with a dumb image with googlie-eyes, not the one that you folks are referring to now. That seems like a more reasonable image, agreed.

 

[sophiecentaur]

That seems like a more reasonable image, agreed.

It's a shame that the second image is such low quality. I'm sure it could have been a lot better and more convincing.
I have to wonder why that first image was offered up as 'evidence'.

 

[Orthoceras]

Seeing the rings around the eyes in a bathroom mirror is slightly difficult because the mirror usually is not uniformly misted. It helps to move your head sideways while watching the mirror, because the motion averages the mist, in a way. Such a sideways motion also helps when trying to take a photo of the rings. An exposure time of 1/15 s allowed me to move the camera sideways and to average the mist, while not excessively blurring the image of the rings. For maximum detail, I used a small pencil flashlight, held close to my head, or the camera lens, as a point source of light, as suggested by James Bridge in his article (see post #24). A uniformly lit background, the usual light source in a bathroom, is the superposition of an infinite number of such point sources of light. The image below shows two typical photos. The details in the photo are: (B) the mirror image of the point source of light together with Quetelet rings; (C) the ring around the reflection of the camera lens; (A) another ring. These details are also seen by the bare eye instead of a camera, when using the small pencil flashlight. (C) is explained by James Bridge in his article, (B) are explained as the familiar Quetelet rings of a dusty mirror, and (A) is not explained anywhere.

When using a uniformly lit background, A and B disappear, they are averaged out, and only C remains.

 

[KJL1962]

Here is some information that may shed light on the subject. It lies in the realm of anatomy. Have you ever witnessed the reflection from a cat's eye at night? It is due to the micro-spherical shape of each eye cell, as well as a macro-spherical shape of the inner eye-cavity. Light which enters the eye, scatters in a spherical pattern, towards the light source/observer because of both, the micro and macro structures of the eye. The former is like reflective beads on a projector screen or road paint. The second is like the secondary mirror on a reflector-type telescope. In a foggy room, this complex light-scattering effect would tend to produce a uniform glow emanating from the pupil, almost like a hologram of the inner eye, as opposed to a point-source. This hologram-like light pattern can illuminate the inner eye, and the area of fog around the pupil, from the perspective of the viewer or camera. In humans, this reflection is attenuated by retinal pigments. But if the incident light is strong enough, or the person has very fair complexion, eye-reflections can be bright enough to see, and bright enough to illuminate the area around the eye.

This is the most logical explanation to me. I was surprised when I saw the eye phenomenon when looking in my foggy mirror after my shower this morning. Normally, I wipe the large mirror but didn't this morning. Wow, it was freaky. So knowing a big about quantum mechanics and the like...I would have to agree with this submitter.

 

[Orthoceras]

Nice observation! On the other hand, an argument against that explanation is that an ordinary camera is able to capture the same ring phenomenon, in the absence of human anatomy, retroreflectors, holograms, illuminated inner eyes, and fair complexions, as shown by photos in previous posts.

 

[SheepShaggerNZ]

I see exactly this. Tried explaining to my wife but this is the first time I've seen someone explain it the same way I see it

 

[cesaravd]

I got this rather clear picture (I think) with my cellphone camera. To my eyes, the camera's ring is not visible. To my camera, my eye's rings are not visible. I suspect it has nothing to do with anatomy, and more to do with the light's path through the foggy mirror into the lens capturing it.

Joke explanation: it's Tlaloc showing his eyes through the fog.

 

[sophiecentaur]

To my eyes, the camera's ring is not visible. To my camera, my eye's rings are not visible.

Is that surprising? The geometry would only work for small angles about the line of the 'average' direction of incidence where there's symmetry - i.e. small rings. For light with incident angles near the axis of the lens `(eye or camera) any halo rings would be fainter and fainter and with bigger radii.
I'd expect any rings to be more visible when the light source is 'from over the shoulder' of the observer and in a room with dark matt walls.
A spotlessly clean mirror and very evenly sized condensation drops would probably produce the best effect.

 

[Davey1980]

So this also happened to me in a hotel room after taking a hot shower. Kinda freaked me out. I noticed the halo stayed with me until I stooped below the the foggy part of the mirror, then the halos disappeared.

 

[Brighteyes]

Hi,
This happened to me at my home. After taking a shower, I saw white halos around my eyes that had the rainbow spectrum in it, my irises were orange tinge to them.
I was initially shocked, confused and freaked out. I'm not a sceptic and am open minded, I've not ever experienced this before. I tried to no avail to capture this on camera. I'm glad I'm not alone in this, but there seems to be no definite explanation from anyone credible out there on this phenomenon.

There is no doubt that what we are experiencing is true, all theses independent people, with no other obvious connection between them. But some expert help would be helpful. There is a solar eclipse coming up soon, and the light from the sun has changed. I don't know if that is a contributing factor.

 

[mfb]

As discussed earlier in the thread, it's likely just an optical effect from fog on the mirror.

There is a solar eclipse coming up soon

There are 2-3 solar eclipses every year, with a total eclipse every 1-2 years. You see the upcoming one discussed more on English-speaking parts of the internet because it crosses the US, but there is nothing special about it from a physics perspective. And this thread is a few years old.

and the light from the sun has changed

It has not.

 

[FSJ]

The colored concentric circles happened to me today for the first time in ten years having the same mirror and opaque privacy glass through which the morning sun was bright behind me.

The freaky thing for me was that it was only one eye. I had to check with another mirror to make sure that the eye was okay lol, since last year I had partial cornea transplant with lens replacement, for (Fuchs disease and cataracts). The effect varied from the colored circles to just an extra wide open eye image depending on the density of the condensation on the mirror, or distance from the mirror.

My still diseased eye having less acuity with somewhat hazy vision, especially in the morning, had no color rings, just a small white halo. I told my wife about this, thinking this was something new to do with post surgery but she had the same thing a couple days ago. After a good laugh, I still can't help wonder why now?

 

[sophiecentaur]

and the light from the sun has changed

Wherever did you get that from? The light from the Sun is constantly changing but only by very small random amounts (sun spots, solar flares, solar mass ejections etc. etc). Be careful about connecting facts that you read about without very good cause.