A parhelion, commonly called a sundog or mock sun (Latin from Greek: parhelion, beside the sun) is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun. It is very common for two sun dogs to flank the Sun within a 22° halo.

The sun dog is a member of the family of halos, caused by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere. Sun dogs typically appear as a pair of subtly colored patches of light, around 22° to the left and right of the Sun, and at the same altitude above the horizon as the Sun.

Sundogs can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but are not always obvious or very bright, but are best seen and most conspicuous when the Sun is near the horizon. Too, the season to see a sundog at it′s brightest and fullest is winter when there is plenty of ice crystals in the atmosphere, especially in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.

After drive for an extremely long day of travel, some six hours of driving as well as a two hour stop at Fort Larned SHS, another stop at Pawnee Rock, even a left parhelion in the sky, and after over 360 miles, I arrive in my destination for tonight, North Plate, Nebraska and drive to the d-mart for my place to overnight location.

Then at about five-thirty this evening, I notice that color has begun to form in the western sky, so not wanting to miss any opportunity to photograph a colorful sunset, I grab my camera and begin walking towards the lakeshore. Although thinking that there is not going to be much color, much less a spectacular sunset, I nevertheless continue towards the lakeshore, but just before the suntouch, I notice something peculiar in the sky.

Right away, I recognize the colorful display as a double parhelion and immediately begin taking photos.

I next zoom my camera into the sundog on the left to get a close up of the color on the clouds.

I continue to walk towards the lake and when there, I take more photos and another one of the full parhelion.

Then in just a matter of a couple minutes, the suntouch occurs, the sunsets and the parhelion is gone from the sky, not to be seen again today. However, the sunglow remains in the sky and continues to grown in size and color.

After over three hours of driving, only after just arriving in Del Rio, Texas as about 5 pm, I look up in the western sky and see something on the horizon. I have to drive a bit further to get a clear view and seeing that it is a sundog, immediately grab my camera and snap a shot. However, I want to get some good photos, so I drive to a salf location, park off of US highway 277, get out with my camera and begin taking photos, taking several which I believe will turn out nice.