Photographic evidence for the third-order rainbow.

The first likely photographic observation of the tertiary rainbow caused by sunlight in the open air is reported and analyzed. Whereas primary and secondary rainbows are rather common and easily seen phenomena in atmospheric optics, the tertiary rainbow appears in the sunward side of the sky and is thus largely masked by forward scattered light. Up to now, only a few visual reports and no reliable photographs of the tertiary rainbow are known. Evidence of a third-order rainbow has been obtained by using image processing techniques on a digital photograph that contains no obvious indication of such a rainbow. To rule out any misinterpretation of artifacts, we carefully calibrated the image in order to compare the observed bow's angular position and dispersion with those predicted by theory.

Palladium-catalyzed cross coupling reactions of 4-bromo-6H-1,2-oxazines.

A number of 4-aryl- and 4-alkynyl-substituted 6H-1,2-oxazines 8 and 9 have been prepared in good yields via cross coupling reactions of halogenated precursors 2, which in turn are easily accessible by bromination of 6H-1,2-oxazines 1. Lewis-acid promoted reaction of 1,2-oxazine 9c with 1-hexyne provided alkynyl-substituted pyridine derivative 12 thus demonstrating the potential of this approach for the synthesis of pyridines.

Lunar eclipse photometry: absolute luminance measurements and modeling.

The Moon's time-dependent luminance was determined during the 9 February 1990 and 3 March 2007 total lunar eclipses by using calibrated, industry standard photometers. After the results were corrected to unit air mass and to standard distances for both Moon and Sun, an absolute calibration was accomplished by using the Sun's known luminance and a pre-eclipse lunar albedo of approximately 13.5%. The measured minimum level of brightness in the total phase of both eclipses was relatively high, namely -3.32 m(vis) and -1.7 m(vis), which hints at the absence of pronounced stratospheric aerosol. The light curves were modeled in such a way as to let the Moon move through an artificial Earth shadow composed of a multitude of disk and ring zones, containing a relative luminance data set from an atmospheric radiative transfer calculation.

On the [2,3] sigmatropic rearrangement of allylic nitro compounds.

Allylic nitro compounds undergo relatively clean [2,3] sigmatropic rearrangement upon heating in refluxing 1,2-dichlorobenzene in the presence of DABCO to give the corresponding allylic alcohols via the intermediate allylic nitrite. [reaction: see text]