Dazzling Duplication in a Perplexing Pair of Orb Veils

Photo date: November 2, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken while photographing ordinary drops of pure, clean water falling against a dark featureless background. We see two of the mysterious objects I call orb veils. This congruent pair of orb veils was one of the largest I have seen, with a width of about six inches.  Note how the pattern of spiky edges is almost exactly the same on the two objects.  I have photographed this type of congruence or duplication 22 times before, in this series of posts. In each of these posts we see two or more orb veils that have the same shape, in a kind of congruent stack, like two distinctively shaped cookies made from the same cookie cutter. 

What we see in the middle here is a stream of dripping water. Despite its large size, the orb veils cast no shadow.  These mysterious things (shown in this stream of 87 photos) never seem to have shadows.  The crescent shapes in the stream of water is another baffling phenomenon I often photograph: the equally mysterious things I call orb crescents (see here for a composite photo of these things).