Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

When I look at water droplets on a shower screen (with light reflecting behind the screen) I see the droplets all have a
glowing sphere with an intricate pattern in the circle - as if floating in the water droplet. The pattern in each circle is always the same - a circle with a glow and inside the circle is 3 much smaller circles and then an intricate pattern around these.
Every circle is the same. And when I look up close to the shower screen I can see thousands of these circles on the shower screen with patterns inside the circle. Can you please tell me what I am looking at.
Kind regards
Louise

A drop of water on a glass screen should be looked at as a wide angle optical lens. So wide in fact that objects and reflections from well outside the viewers peripheral vision can be seen. I suspect that what you are seeing is a combination of directly viewed objects and reflections of objects from all over the environment in which the lens resides. Because of the acute curvature of this "lens", it will distort these images to a point they may not be recognizable at all.

The water droplets are refracting the the light coming from "behind the the screen, The ring of light on the outer edge of the water droplets just isn't turning into rainbow because the water droplet isn't large enough. very likely the "complicated image in the center is"upside down" image of the objects reflecting the light toward the water droplet. The water droplet is acting like a plano convex lens, refracting the light rays coming from behind, which why you get that "glowing ring of light at the edges of the water droplet. if the image I've attached below works, note that what is behind the water droplet is upside down IN the water droplet