Strange weather phenomenon recorded with his lens, the Swedish astrophotographer Göran Strand. In mid-December last year he was on his way to his office when he saw a solar halo. “I didn’t plan this photo,” he said, speaking to My Modern Met. “I took my camera and my drone and drove to the point where I knew I would have the city and the halo together.” With the sun at its highest point over the town of Östersund, he knew he had captured a once-in-a-lifetime photo. The result was such that his photo was chosen by NASA as Astronomy Picture Of the Day.

In his photo, the solar halo shines over a bridge connecting Östersund to the island of Frösön. “Above Frösön you can see a small cloud of smoke rising from the island. It is snow produced by snow cannons on Gustavsbergsbacken, the local snow slope. These tiny ice crystals that produce snow cannons are almost perfectly shaped and have a tendency to be more likely to form a solar halo. “Solar halos are most often visible near ski resorts that have snow cannons that produce these perfect ice crystals,” he explained.