Starship Asterisk*

Moondog Night

Explanation: In this night scene from the early hours of November 14, light from a last quarter Moon illuminates clouds above the mountaintop domes of Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. Bright Jupiter is just left of the overexposed lunar disk with a streak of camera lens flare immediately to the right, but that's no fireball meteor exploding near the center of the picture. Instead, from the roadside perspective a stunningly bright moondog or paraselene stands directly over Kitt Peaks's WIYN telescope. Analogous to a sundog or parhelion, a paraselene is produced by moonlight refracted through thin, hexagonal, plate-shaped ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. As determined by the crystal geometry, paraselenae (plural) are seen at an angle of 22 degrees or more from the Moon. Compared to the bright lunar disk they are more often faint and easier to spot when the Moon is low. About 10 minutes after the photograph even this bright moondog had faded from the night.

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And then there is the second arc at 44 degrees on the left.

Postman - I'm guessing that is a camera internal reflection thing but then again....

What is the technical name for Sundogs, ie the same reflections in daylight?

I remember seeing the Sun with two mini suns on each side many years back in the Scottish Borders. They must be far more common in higher latitiudes.

Awesome lookin'....
It was clear when I went out earlier, and the Moon was bright, and Orion was looked great.

:---[===] *

MikeH wrote:What is the technical name for Sundogs, ie the same reflections in daylight?

Parhelia. I suppose the lunar equivalent is parselenia.

MikeH wrote:I remember seeing the Sun with two mini suns on each side many years back in the Scottish Borders. They must be far more common in higher latitiudes.

Maybe a little, because ice clouds might be a little more common. But sundogs and moondogs are extremely common nearly everywhere. I see them dozens of time each year, from 38°N.

How common are they at 28°N ?

FloridaMike wrote:How common are they at 28°N ?

I'd say they're extremely common- many per year at any latitude, since thin ice clouds are common from the poles to the equator.

We had a great early morning moon and, later on, a sun halo here in LA this last Sunday!

Postman wrote:And then there is the second arc at 44 degrees on the left.

madtom1999 wrote:Postman - I'm guessing that is a camera internal reflection thing but then again....

It is definitely more than a flare. It is a multicolored arc at 44 deg (extreme 9:00) just like a Colored Rainbow

BMAONE23 wrote:

Postman wrote:And then there is the second arc at 44 degrees on the left.

madtom1999 wrote:Postman - I'm guessing that is a camera internal reflection thing but then again....

It is definitely more than a flare. It is a multicolored arc at 44 deg (extreme 9:00) just like a Colored Rainbow

Rainbow-like lens flares are quite common.

BMAONE23 wrote:

Postman wrote:And then there is the second arc at 44 degrees on the left.

madtom1999 wrote:Postman - I'm guessing that is a camera internal reflection thing but then again....

It is definitely more than a flare. It is a multicolored arc at 44 deg (extreme 9:00) just like a Colored Rainbow

I think it's flare. If it were a halo, it would almost have to be a fragment of the very rare 46° halo, and the colors are too saturated and run in the wrong direction for that.

The colors are reversed aren't they, Blue hues toward the source instead of red