Stan Ray wrote:
>
> Can anyone explain to me why the secondary rainbow (the fainter one outside
> the main one) is a mirror image of the main rainbow. That is, the color
> sequence is reversed.
> Reply to me personally if you like.
> Stan Ray
> STAN RAY

It's actually pretty simple, although it's hard to describe without
a good drawing. Rainbows are caused mostly by the reflection of
sunlight INSIDE the raindrops. If you can find a picture in a science
book which shows how the light bounces around inside the raindrop,
then picture that the secondary rainbow is caused by the light
bouncing off the same "walls" in the opposite order. The optical
properties which cause the light to split into colors get "flipped" by
the reversed direction, hence the pattern gets flipped.

Hope this helps....

Dean dean at amc.com