Feb 21, 2009: Moonbow

[xoxoxoBruce]

Remember our buddy Wally Palchoka's picture, "False Kiva"?
This Guardian article, points to Wally's website, Astropics, and this "Moonbow".



That is just so cool!

It is an image worthy of a science fiction film: a rainbow, photographed in the middle of the night, glimmers in the foreground while behind it a brilliant star rises above the horizon. The effect is exotic and unworldly. Nevertheless, the picture is very much an earthly affair. It was taken by photographer Wally Pacholka while he was standing at the edge of Haleakala crater on the island of Maui in the Hawaii archipelago.

As Pachokla explains, that band of colours is, in reality, a moonbow. Like a rainbow, its daylight equivalent, a moonbow is produced when light is broken up into its constituent colours as it passes through water droplets. In both cases, the source of light is the same: the Sun. In the case of the rainbow, sunlight produces its effect directly. In the case of the moonbow, however, that sunlight is first reflected off the surface of the moon and then shines back down to Earth.

That bright star in the background? Mars.