Mirage - Heat Haze

Heat Haze

Heat haze, also called heat shimmer, refers to the distortive effect experienced when viewing objects through a layer of heated air, for example across hot asphalt or through the exhaust gases produced by jet engines.

Convection causes the temperature and hence the refractive index of the air to vary, and so a blurred shimmering effect is produced which affects the ability to resolve objects, the effect being increased when the image is magnified through a telescope or telephoto lens.

Heat Haze is not related to the atmospheric phenomenon of haze.

Read more about this topic:  Mirage

Famous quotes containing the words heat and/or haze:

    Even if you find yourself in a heated exchange with your toddler, it is better for your child to feel the heat rather than for him to feel you withdraw emotionally.... Active and emotional involvement between parent and child helps the child make the limits a part of himself.
    Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)

    Here is what sometimes happened to me: after spending the first part of the night at my desk—that part when night trudges heavily uphill—I would emerge from the trance of my task at the exact moment when night had reached the summit and was teetering on that crest, ready to roll down into the haze of dawn....
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)