Found: The end of the rainbow... but there's no pot of gold

Legend has it that at the end of every rainbow sits a leprechaun, hammering on a shoe, who will reveal the whereabouts of a crock of gold.



Just as well, then, that it's only a legend - otherwise the little imp at the end of this rainbow would have found himself squashed by a 4x4 on a busy motorway.



While many of us have seen a rainbow, few have been lucky enough to witness where it actually ends.

Even fewer have caught the moment on camera.



Spectacular: The rainbow leaps directly from the tarmac in Jason Erdkamp's photograph

This rare picture was taken by amateur photographer Jason Erdkamp as he travelled along a freeway in Orange County, California, in the rain last Sunday.



And it does seem to have proved lucky for him.



'There was no pot of gold,' he said yesterday. But I did win $25 that night on a lottery ticket.'



Now the rainbow has moved. Jason estimated that it was travelling at up to 30mph

Rainbows occur when sunlight is refracted through rain droplets to create an arc-shaped spectrum of colours in the sky.





This particular rainbow was caused by a storm last Sunday from a cold front moving through California's Santa Ana mountains.

Mr Erdkamp photographed it using his Apple iPhone as he travelled along the 241 toll road in Orange County.

He even managed to estimate how fast the rainbow was travelling as it moved northwards.

Speaking from his U.S. home, he said: 'Rainbows seemed very dynamic in movement when you are near their base.

'The speed of movement across the ground was about 20 to 30mph as the base of the rainbow moved with the storm. It lasted for about five minutes.'