Explanation: In this snapshot from November 18, the Full Moon was not far from Earth's shadow. In skies over Sicily the brightest lunar phase was eclipsed by passing clouds though. The full moonlight was dimmed and momentarily diffracted by small but similar sized water droplets near the edges of the high thin clouds. The resulting iridescence shines with colors like a lunar corona. On that night, the Full Moon was also seen close to the Pleiades star cluster appearing at the lower left of the iridescent cloud bank. The stars of the Seven Sisters were soon to share the sky with a darker, reddened lunar disk.
Lovely APOD! Beautiful night-time Moon-encompassing iridescent cloud colored like the lunar corona! Love the fact that the Pleiades are caught in the cloud at far left like a glittering cherub from the cosmic depths, caught in a fisherman's net!
Ann wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:32 am
Lovely APOD! Beautiful night-time Moon-encompassing iridescent cloud colored like the lunar corona! Love the fact that the Pleiades are caught in the cloud at far left like a glittering cherub from the cosmic depths, caught in a fisherman's net!
Ann
Thanks Ann; I almost missed the sisters! When you mentioned Them;
I looked again! It is beautiful photo! It will go into my colection!
Ann wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:32 am
Lovely APOD! Beautiful night-time Moon-encompassing iridescent cloud colored like the lunar corona! Love the fact that the Pleiades are caught in the cloud at far left like a glittering cherub from the cosmic depths, caught in a fisherman's net!
Ann
I've had that happen before with the Pleiades in images. This is from just two weeks ago, horse packing in Utah's canyon country. I was playing with my new phone's night imaging mode, and shot the rising Moon (this was the night of the lunar eclipse). Didn't even notice that the Pleiades were in there until I got home a week later and saw the image on the big screen. If it was visible visually, I didn't notice it at the time. (The trees in the foreground are lit by our campfire.)
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Chris
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
Ann wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:32 am
Lovely APOD! Beautiful night-time Moon-encompassing iridescent cloud colored like the lunar corona! Love the fact that the Pleiades are caught in the cloud at far left like a glittering cherub from the cosmic depths, caught in a fisherman's net!
Ann
I've had that happen before with the Pleiades in images. This is from just two weeks ago, horse packing in Utah's canyon country. I was playing with my new phone's night imaging mode, and shot the rising Moon (this was the night of the lunar eclipse). Didn't even notice that the Pleiades were in there until I got home a week later and saw the image on the big screen. If it was visible visually, I didn't notice it at the time. (The trees in the foreground are lit by our campfire.)
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<<The Nebra sky disc is a bronze disc of around 30 centimetres diameter and a weight of 2.2 kilograms, having a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols. These symbols are interpreted generally as the Sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster of seven stars interpreted as the Pleiades). Two golden arcs along the sides, interpreted to mark the angle between the solstices, were added later. A final addition was another arc at the bottom with internal parallel lines (of uncertain meaning, variously interpreted as a solar barge with numerous oars, the Milky Way, or a rainbow).
The disc has been attributed to a site in present-day Germany near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, and was originally dated by archaeologists to c. 1600 BCE. Researchers initially suggested the disc is an artefact from the Bronze Age Unetice culture, although a later dating to the Iron Age has also been proposed. The disc may be an astronomical instrument as well as an item of religious significance. The blue-green patina of the bronze may have been an intentional part of the original artefact. The find is regarded as reconfirming that the astronomical knowledge and abilities of the people of the European Bronze Age included close observation of the yearly course of the Sun, and the angle between its rising and setting points at the summer and winter solstices. While much older earthworks and megalithic astronomical complexes, such as the Goseck circle and Stonehenge, had already been used to mark the solstices, the disc is the oldest known "portable instrument" to allow such measurements. Euan MacKie suggests that the Nebra disc may be linked to the solar calendar reconstructed by Alexander Thom from his analysis of standing stone alignments in Britain.
The disc, together with two bronze swords, two hatchets, a chisel, and fragments of spiral bracelets were discovered in 1999 by Henry Westphal and Mario Renner while they were treasure-hunting with a metal detector. The detectorists were operating without a license, and knew their activity constituted looting and was illegal. In a plea bargain, they led police and archaeologists to the discovery site. Archaeologists opened a dig at the site and uncovered traces of bronze artefacts in the ground, and the soil at the site matched soil samples found clinging to the artefacts. The discovery site is a prehistoric enclosure encircling the top of a 252 metres elevation in the Ziegelroda Forest some 60 km west of Leipzig. The surrounding area is known to have been settled in the Neolithic era. At the enclosure's location, the sun seems to set every summer solstice behind the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz mountains, some 80 km to the north-west. If its Bronze Age dating is accurate, the Nebra sky disc features the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos yet known from anywhere in the world. In June 2013 it was included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register and termed "one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century.">>
Ann wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 5:32 am
Lovely APOD! Beautiful night-time Moon-encompassing iridescent cloud colored like the lunar corona! Love the fact that the Pleiades are caught in the cloud at far left like a glittering cherub from the cosmic depths, caught in a fisherman's net!
Ann
I've had that happen before with the Pleiades in images. This is from just two weeks ago, horse packing in Utah's canyon country. I was playing with my new phone's night imaging mode, and shot the rising Moon (this was the night of the lunar eclipse). Didn't even notice that the Pleiades were in there until I got home a week later and saw the image on the big screen. If it was visible visually, I didn't notice it at the time. (The trees in the foreground are lit by our campfire.)
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PXL_20211120_011410964p.jpg
That's a beautiful photo, Chris! I also enjoyed visiting your aptly named web site.
Iridescent by Moonlight
It is beautiful photo! It will go into my colection!
