Moon Halo - 2
A 22°-radius halo surrounds the waxing gibbous Moon on Dec. 23, 1012. Such halos can occur when is a thin veil of high cirrus clouds covers the sky. Ice crystals suspended in the clouds act like tiny 6-sided prisms that refract the Moon's light to produce the halo. For more information, see the blog post Moon Halo.
The bright "star" to the upper left of the halo in the image above is the planet Jupiter in the constellation Taurus. An additional image can be seen at Moon Halo - 1.
Technical Details
- Object: Moon Halo - 2
- Date/Time: 2012 Dec 23 at 04:29 UTC
- Location: Bifrost Astronomical Observatory, Portal, AZ
- Mount: Monfroto Tripod
- Lens: Nikkor AI 20mm f/2.8
- Camera: Nikon D800
- Field of View: 83.8° x 61.9° at 5.4 arc-min/pixel (web version: 98 arc-sec/pixel)
- Exposure: 8s, f/4, ISO 800
- File Name: MoonHalo12-0006w.jpg
- Processing (Adobe Camera Raw): Noise Reduction
- Processing (Photoshop CS5): Curves, Spot Healing Brush
- Original Image Size: 4912 × 7360 pixels (36.2 MP); 16.4" x 24.5" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2012 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.