Moon Halo in Sydney

Well it seems that when the Pope's in town, the Moon gets a halo.

Just as I was heading to bed tonight I went outside for a bit, and the Moon had a very pronounced ring around it. I've only ever seen it that bright maybe one other time in my life. I grabbed the camera & tripod to get a few shots:





The above images were 30 second exposures at f/8.0. The dot on the upper left is Jupiter as far as I can ascertain, and the tiny blue dot appearing in two of the images is a stubborn lens flare.

The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of Moonlight (which of course is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The shape of the ice crystals results in a focusing of the light into a ring. Since the ice crystals typically have the same shape, namely a hexagonal shape, the Moon ring is almost always the same size.

More info:
home.hiwaay.net...
en.wikipedia.org...

I just went outside again, and the halo is still there - it's much more faint but visible nonetheless.

beautiful pictures evasius
thank you for sharing them.

reply to post by Evasius


As someone who is very interested in the moon, I just want to thank you for posting these images. They are truly beautiful, much appreciated.

Great pics thanks for posting.
However I think its a little less to do with the Pope and more to do with pollution.

I've seen this and it is ethereal.I believe the American Indians call it a sun dog and it means good hunting.I saw a blood red moon once and that was very weird.

very nice pictures.

maybe there's a conspiracy between pope's visit and halo

I'm in America, but I was out last night actually looking at the moon with my telescope. I noted nothing unusual. Actually, last night (and for about the last two weeks), there was a bright star in the southern sky, This is actually Jupiter, and I think I could see four of its moons clearly, on low power... it was pretty neat!

Out here in Phoenix we also see the halo a lot. There is a lot of dust here, so that could be it. Can also see Jupiter up there in the sky Nice pictures .

reply to post by Evasius

i live in glasgow and me and some friends saw this on christmas eve 2007 and again sometime mid january very cool init ...nice pics

I was out in Sydney tonight and commented on this halo myself, although I have seen such in syd many times before. BTW my partner seems convinced there was some kind of weather mod for the popefest, either cloud seeding or chemtrails or both. We witnessed very odd patterns in the sky last Sunday followed by unexpected rain Monday then a clear week for WYD. I dunno what to think bout that tbh.

Edit: Also a strange moving light in the sky last saturday night over the Royal NP that defied ordinary explanations. The following day we saw 2 military choppers moving thru the exact same vicinity.

[edit on 19-7-2008 by Shar_Chi]

Thank you all for your comments. Shar_Chi, I agree with you about the possible weather modification this past week. If anyone can organize acceptable weather for an event, it's the Pope's entourage. I noticed odd patterns from Wednesday onwards, and it continued through today (Sunday).

Throughout today it was hazy, but there was no perceptible cause for the haziness. It wasn't overly humid, there were no bushfires, and the forecast didn't even call for it. There was definitely something in the air though. My wife and I had major sinus issues today, I had a sinus headache all day and she had swelling around her eyes. On top of that, we both noticed black spots in our mucous when we blew our noses today -- and we don't remember smelling any smoke recently.

Anyway, the moon halo did an accurate job of foretelling the weather this evening, it's been raining for awhile now here.

Ahh so thats what it is, about two months ago me and a few of me mates saw a huge halo around the moon and didnt have a clue what it was.

Great pics but I would say it is just a lunar corona I'll post a descent link to the event.
Link