Moon Halo? Awesome!

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brandbll

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So last night i was standing out on my back steps and i looked up at the moon only to see this giant ring type cloud around it in an absolute perfect circle. The ring looked about 10-15 times larger than the moon itself in my view. I swear i did like a double take when i looked up at it. I thought that perhaps i had come across some extreme coincidence of clouds crossing over just at the right moment. I scrambled for myu camera but remembered i left it at my parents house. So i tried to take one with my cell phone camera but that was worthless. After that i just sat back for a while and decided to take it in.

Now i come to find out it wasn't a coincidence but something called a "moon halo." I tried Wiking it but didn't get much. Are these fairly common, or atleast common at the size i saw them? I look up at the sky quite a bit and have never seen something like that(atleast that i can remember). Here's sort of what the one i saw looked like:

moon-halo2.jpg
 
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MeteorWayne

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They are reasonably common.

Here's a site to check out...look under halos or ice crystals.

If you are going to peruse the site, give youself some time. Once you delve in, you'll probably be there for a while considering your curiousity level :)

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/

If you have less time, here's a link just to the ice halos:

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halosim.htm

If you have even less time :) , here's a link to the specific 22 degree halo, which sounds like what you saw:


http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/circular.htm


MW
 
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brandbll

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MeteorWayne":3bj3wxkg said:
They are reasonably common.

Here's a site to check out...look under halos or ice crystals.

If you are going to peruse the site, give youself some time. Once you delve in, you'll probably be there for a while considering your curiousity level :)

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/

If you have less time, here's a link just to the ice halos:

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halosim.htm

If you have even less time :) , here's a link to the specific 22 degree halo, which sounds like what you saw:


http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/circular.htm


MW

Cool, thanks for the info. I just finished reading through most of the site(the ice halos part atleast) and i guess my only other question is whether it occurs more at night time or day time or about the same for both?
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
Well, daytime more, since th sun is brighter and it's more noticeable.

When the moon is full (~ Mag -12) the halo is bright enough to easily notice, and the moon is high in the sky.
A week either way, and the moon is far less bright, and is closer to the horizon at night, so the halo is dimmer, and only part of it is visible.

Now that you're hooked, you can look for it more often :)

The ideal cloud cover is a thin cirrus layer.

BTW the common Sun dogs also have a counterpart with the moon, with moon dogs visble when the moon is near the horizon; but it usually takes a close to full moon for them to be bright enough to notice. All depends on how hard you look ! ;)
 
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origin

Guest
A ring around the moon also means there is a fairly good bet that it will rain within 12 - 24 hours, because the cirrus clouds are and indication of a warm front or low pressure system is approaching.
 
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crazyeddie

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MeteorWayne":3r3opy18 said:
Well, daytime more, since th sun is brighter and it's more noticeable.

Indeed. Once, when I was living in San Francisco, I was astonished at a halo around the sun which was so bright that they featured it on the local evening news. Like you, I'm used to noticing such things, but I had never seen one as bright as that, before or since. :cool:
 
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