I was having a look at the waning crescent of the Moon this morning at about 6.30 when I noticed that there was a second crescent beside it but only about one third of the length.
Does anyone know what type of effect or phenomena I was seeing. It definitely was a very interesting sight.
Oh well, that rules out instrumentation artifacts!
At those low temperatures (brrr!) I suspect this might have been caused by some atmospheric phenomenon, reflections from airborne ice crystals perhaps?
SpaceWeather sometimes publishes photos of atmospheric phenomenon but I don’t recollect having seen what you described.
On the way home from work yesterday, I noticed through my UV sunnies that the sushine on the clouds was veru unusual.
It was a casting almost an oil like shine to the clouds. Like a rainbow except through the surrounding clouds, over them, through them.
This is my hypothesis.
The larger crescent was the normal and direct view of the Moon.
Off the line of sight, there was a high layer of atmospheric vapour in the shape of a rough lens (like a lens shape cloud). This focussed the incoming crescent image as a smaller image onto a less dense layer of vapour below but off the line of sight. A fluke of shape and position of atmospheric vapour.
The smaller crescent should have been less defined.
