Fantastic moon halo

JimmyH155 · #1 30-10-2006, 10:30 AM

Did anybody see that moon on Saturday night?? I stepped outside at 1930hrs on Saturday and saw the most amazing sight I have ever seen of the moon. It looked like a star in your telescope that you have defocused. Two perfect concentric circles surrounded the moon - the innermost one a good 2 moon diameters and a vivid orange

the outermost ring was a greyish blue, again 2 full moon diameters

. Each ring was sharply focused, and the colours did not seem to merge.
The phenomenom lasted for about 3 minutes, then the haloes slowly dispersed as different clouds drifted by. A few minutes later, I saw an aeroplane approaching about 5000 ft with his spot light on. You could see the cone of light easily for about 80 metres in front of the plane - but the strange thing was, that when it drew closer, there was no engine noise - definitely no jet engine and not the normal propeller noise

Aliens maybe??
Then to top it all off a magnificent very bright meteor streaked by in the west travelling from from south to north and was visible for what must have been at least a second

Altogether some amazing sights.

rmcpb (Rob) · #2 30-10-2006, 01:53 PM

Saw an article of the moon rings in APOD once. Its something to do with ice crystals in the atmosphere and the angle of refraction through them that produces the rings. Nice sight tough.

Keep looking up

[1ponders] (Paul) · #3 30-10-2006, 02:09 PM

Lucky you, Jimmy. Sounds like it was really something to see. I can see you having to add a 350D to your equipment list

Dennis · #4 30-10-2006, 03:46 PM

Here's a lunar halo I grabbed back in Aug 2005. I "cheated" in this version, and tried albeit clumsily, to copy and paste a full Moon into the burned out core, where the full Moon actually was positioned, but was hopelessly overexposed.

Cheers

Dennis

rmcpb (Rob) · #5 30-10-2006, 04:32 PM

Knew I wasn't going nuts here is the link

JimmyH155 · #6 30-10-2006, 04:56 PM

I completely forgot the camera! I rushed into the house, shouted at the wife and son to come outside quickly, and we then just stared at it open mouthed! Dont worry though, the camera is going to be at the ready from now on. (actually I have aPentax istDl - very pleased with it. Still learning what it'lldo. ) Those pics you guys showed, great, but last Saturday the colour was really vivid

. Saturday in Brissie it was well over 30 deg C, it was frosty in Canberra, snow in Vic - no wonder the sky and clouds were all mixed up

ving (David) · #7 30-10-2006, 05:32 PM

i saw a good one a couple of weeks back.. or was it a month back... well you get it anyhow