What you're looking at in these two photographs is the layer of thin, high cloud. It's called cirrus if it is small, wispy cloud, and cirrostratus if it coalesces to form a layer.
At certain times, you can get a circular rainbow around The Sun as its light is refracted through ice particles in these high clouds. Sometimes you get part of it like an upside down rainbow. I'll put a newspaper photo of this up on the wall in C11.
However, sometimes, the effect is so intense that you get two fake suns, one on each side of The Sun. These are called sun dogs. I've never seen one but it is supposed to happen up to once a week in these lattitudes. Apparently the best conditions are when The Sun is low in the sky. The hunt is on.
Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog for details and photos.
