Moonbow?

[Joyce Wallace]

While camping in Colorado last Saturday, I witnessed what appeared to be a
moonbow. There was a full moon with clear sky in the East and the West sky
was cloudy with light rain. There was a large faint white arc stretching
across the western horizon that lasted for about 5 minutes. Unfortunately,
I didn't get a photo. Has anyone ever heard of or seen this phenomenon?

[Gene Anderson]

Yes:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010704.html
(a pretty cool 30 second exposure of a moonbow and some sailboats)
Search at Google or your favorite search engine on "moonbow" and you'll
get lots of hits, e.g., http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=moonbow

[Joyce Wallace]

Thanks for the great info Gene. Did the moonbow in your photograph appear
white or colored? In your picture it appears the same color as a rainbow,
the one I saw was only white?

[Gene Anderson]

That wasn't my picture, it was NASA's :-) BTW, the daily link for that, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html is pretty cool if you're
at all interested in astronomy or just like interesting images. You can
browse the archived pix, too -- there's some wild shots from Hubble and
other sources of nebulas, planets, and stars.
Re: color, it may have simply been what your eyes could see. If you
could take a 30 second image of it, you might pick up the colors.

Also, did you see it around the moon, or in a normal rainbow position,
i.e., opposite the moon? If it was around the moon, that was a halo,
caused by ice crystals in the upper atmosphere:
http://www.moon-watch.com/moon_ring.html
Those can also show refraction and hence colors, but are different than
a 'moonbow'.

[Unregistered]

I saw it on the opposite horizon from the moon, not around the moon. I was
a giant arc just like a rainbow, but white. I wished I would have tried the
photo, I probably missed out a once in a lifetime opportunity!

[dylanframes]

How about that white ring around the moon? They say its just gas or some kind of dust around the moon. Have someone get a picture of it? It seem quite majestic. :)

[clairedevere]

I've seen it once but wasn't able to get a picture of it. It's extraordinary but the moonbow is much fascinating. I've seen once but you can only see it while there is still light. Good luck on capturing this images on your camera! ;)

[Unregistered]

Driving home to york area from bridlington on the east coast of england on sunday 28th November 2004 a friend said to me is that a rainbow up there in the sky . i just laughed and said you don't get rainbows at night there is no sun. to which she replied what is that up there then? i looked up and sure enough there was this full 180 degree arc right across the sky in the western sky. not knowing what it was i did a search on the internet to see if you did get rainbows are night and after about tem minutes of searching i found the answer. what we had seen was called a moonbow and we was very lucky to have seen it. wish i had had my camera with me but i did find a picture that resembled the actually bow. take a look on my personally web site for the image. htpp://www.snell-online.co.uk

[Rick Baker]

Driving home to york area from bridlington on the east coast of england on sunday 28th November 2004 a friend said to me is that a rainbow up there in the sky . i just laughed and said you don't get rainbows at night there is no sun. to which she replied what is that up there then? i looked up and sure enough there was this full 180 degree arc right across the sky in the western sky. not knowing what it was i did a search on the internet to see if you did get rainbows are night and after about tem minutes of searching i found the answer. what we had seen was called a moonbow and we was very lucky to have seen it. wish i had had my camera with me but i did find a picture that resembled the actually bow. take a look on my personally web site for the image. htpp://www.snell-online.co.uk


Nice. I would like to see or photograph one.