Ring Around the Moon

"Ring Around the Moon" is the name of a Dan Fogelberg song and also the subject of some photographs I took on an October evening.



In order to show the ring, the moon ends up being very overexposed. That's why I used the trees to partially block the moon.

The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of moonlight through ice crystals suspended in the upper atmosphere. A moon ring or moon halo will always be roughly the same size - 22-degrees across the sky - because the crystals bend the light at a 22-degree angle from their original path.

In the photo below, the condensation trail from a jet is cutting across the halo. The contrail actually moved quickly across the sky.





Here's another photo that includes a basketball hoop. The backboard was lit from lights on a school playground.