Atmospheric Distortion

I was looking through my images of last nights sunset when I came across some excellent examples of atmospheric distortion caused by the atmosphere. The earth's atmosphere closest to the horizon acts to flatten the circular shape of the Sun. Because the Sun's disk is about half a degree in diameter, light from the bottom of the Sun passes through more of the earth's atmosphere than does light from the top of the sun's disk. The lower portion of light is refracted upwards by a greater amount than at the top, causing squishing or flattening. This occurs more often when the atmosphere is smoky,cloudy or foggy. In last night's case there was a lot of heavy smoke in the air. God's love to all, chris