Rays leaving raindrops after three reflections produce a tertiary rainbow (3rd order rainbow). Unlike the primary and secondary bows which are opposite the sun and centered on the antisolar point, the tertiary appears sunwards and centered on the sun. With a nominal radius of 42.5º it is similar in size to, but very much broader in it′s width than the primary bow.

The total brightness of the tertiary bow is 24% of the primary bow making it much less likely to be visible due to at least three difficulties: (1) its light is swamped by that of rays that pass through raindrops without any internal reflection. These generate an intense glare around the sun, the zero order glow that masks the tertiary, (2) the tertiary is much broader than the primary and secondary, thus its luminosity per unit solid angle of sky is correspondingly less, (3) glare and scattered light from the nearby sun interferes.

Therefore, if you do see a photograph showing a triple rainbow, one above the other and a third one above those two, you can most assuredly doubt it′s authenticity, as it was likely manufactured by a photo editor.

Many photos are showing up on the internet claiming to show a triple and or quadruple rainbow. These photos show a primary, a secondary and also a third and sometimes a fourth rainbow but these 3rd and 4th rainbows radiate out of the horizon at a different angle from the primary and secondary bows. These are not as many claim, triple and quadruple rainbows but are actually reflections of the primary and secondary. (See Reflection Bow below)

Thus, the chance of seeing a tertiary bow is very unlikely indeed and nearly impossible to photograph. Below are two photos of a tertiary-quaternary bow combination. The first has the sun at the left and then a tertiary rainbow with the dimmer quaternary rainbow just to the right.

Light rays leaving raindrops after four internal reflections produce a quaternary rainbow (forth order rainbow) which is then located outside of but very close to the thid order rainbow. The quaternary bow has colors reversed from the tertiary bow and has a brightness that is only 15% of that of the primary.

The photo below has two pains showing photos taken only seconds apart. The left pain shows: the primary on the left and the secondary on the right. The sun from this photo was behind the photographer.

The right pain shows: the tertiary on the right, the quaternary on the left. The sun is just to the right outside of the photo. Very rare photos indeed!

The fifth and sixth order bows are wide compared to the primary and secondary. They are made by rays that are closer to the edges of the droplets. These glancing rays are more widely color separated when they enter and leave the drops.

The fifth order bow is produced by rays emerging after five internal reflections and is reflected towards the antisolar point. The outer edge of the red section of the bow has a radius of 52.9º, which is slightly greater in radius than that the red inner rim of the secondary bow.

This causes the red and yellow sections of the fifth order bow to be overwhelmed by the red of the secondary rainbow, but the green and blue sections of the fifth order bow fall within the Alexander′s dark band which is between the primary and secondary rainbows.

Orders beyond five will surely yield to photography, but only upon the use of continuous video monitoring, switching polarizing and narrow band filters, scrupulous shielding of optics and minimizing stray light, sun tracking mounts, combined with clean air, dark sky backgrounds and intensive image processing.

The 6th order bow is lost in the white light disk inside the primary bow.

The 7th order bow is clear of interfering light but is very broad and dim.

The 8th order bow is lost in the glow of the sun.

The 9th order bow is in clear sky.

The 10th order bow is at or below the horizon.

The 11th order bow is in clear sky.