The attached image is a high-quality render of a simple scene containing an
opaque red sphere and a glass sphere on a white plane with a point light in
between. I've set this up for benchmarking various settings, and because I've
been explaining some of the more advanced pov-ray features to a friends who is
new to it.

I noticed that in this particular scene, the caustics created by the photons
when I have photon mapping and dispersion turned on create these concentric
rings...this only seems to happen when the light source is parallel with the
center of the glass sphere...if I move it up a little I get a focuses circle
caustic.

I'm guessing this this is due to the photons reflecting around the inside of the
sphere, but am wondering if the effect is realistic or if it should be
considered an artifact? I actually looked for photos with a similar effect, but
haven't yet found one.

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