milky in sun, an all-or-none phenomenon?

[lovesquares]

Hello All,

With regards to stones appearing milky in sunlight... is this an all-or-none sort of phenomenon, or can you have a stone that looks "mildly" or "moderately" milky in sunlight? If so, does that correlate with the degree of fluorescence (i.e. medium fluro= mildly milky, strong fluoro= milkly, very strong fluor= very milky).

 

[valeria101]

Not that I can know what "milky" you are talking about...

The word would seem appropriate to describe any of a number of things. Let's see if one rings true:

#1: you are seeing glare of the table of the diamond - this is light reflected off the facet that does not travel any further into the stone to return as "brilliance". In strong light glare is quite obvious and may be described as a "haze" because it does not let you see the facet pattern of the stone (it shows very obviously in pictures)

#2: fluorescence all right. Strong or more may cause the inside of the stone to appear foggy. If this is the case - than the effect can best (IMO) be observed with the diamond culet up on black background. If it appears "milky" in this setup under sunlight and not under incandescent light (assuming incandescent light has less fluorescence) - than yeah, the haziness is definitely fluorescence.

#3: inclusions. You can get some lucky diamond (say SI or worse) with virtually no other inclusions but extensive clouds or graining. Those appear hazy allright.

Is any of these more likely given what the cert looks like ?

 

[valeria101]

This is one I1(fancy ligth gray) made hazy by clouds (the main inclusion):