The "Moon Halo"

Another topic about the sky. I'm on a roll.

This is something I've experienced a few times, maybe three or four. These nights, when the moon is at least mostly full, it seems to have a perfect circle around it, much like a halo. Each time, I remember the stars shone bright and it was cloudless. This halo was like a reflection of the moon upon clouds, a silvery sheen. It seemed much higher in altitude than the moon casting above a thin layer of clouds. It was like a hole was cut in the atmosphere. This would last a few hours, and disappear.

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I've also seen this many times in the past, but never got around to looking it up. So seeing this I did. Pretty interesting, but also a very simple explanation at the same time.

Moon Halo

Hope this explanation helps you out.

reply to post by FrostForests


Not uncommon. Caused by ice crystals in the atmosphere.
home.hiwaay.net...

That was pretty neat! Thanks, I appreciate it.

Very strange, I had never noticed this before tonight. Then I come on ATS and you had posted a thread about it.

I remember reading in survival book years ago that it indicates moisture in the air / or its going to rain that night.

I started a thread a while back about this, I started noticing a red halo around the moon and posted a thread to see if anyone else was noticing this. It is nowhere near cold here yet, we are just reaching temps below 70, and that is in the last couple of weeks, and precipitation has been pretty absent as well. I mention the temps and dry weather because it doesn't corealate to the weather phenomenon.

When I was a student living in the wilds of Ireland I got back one night to the most beautiful sky ever which I have never forgotten. It was the time of Halle Bop and there it was in a sky with a full moon and moon halo, it was an utterly gorgeous sky. I didn't have a digital camera then and, it being 1997, my mobile phone just laughed at me and said "why would a phone ever have a camera???"