Looked up to the full moon tonight and saw this giant bright ring surrounding it; for the first time in my lifetime. Made me stop and look at it for a while, admiring the universe. 🙂

Space.com says that this phenomenon is called lunar halo and its an optical illusion that causes a large bright ring to surround the moon. This striking and often beautiful halo around the moon is caused by the refraction of moonlight from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, usually during cold weather.

by alekksick

14 comments

  5. I saw the same about 2 months ago and posted it on r/cork. I’m living here all my life and never saw it. Was amazing to see because I never even knew this happened, people from all over cork responded to say they saw it aswel. It was there for an hour or two, and the halo got bigger as time went on. I thought it was a smudge on my glasses at first.
    [here’s a link to the one I saw](https://www.reddit.com/r/cork/s/DUkmqgk7eD)

  6. Yeah I also stopped to look for a bit. Fair nice night sky like .

  7. I took exactly same picture an hour ago, North Co. Dublin 😊

  8. Lunar Elliptical Halo caused by pressure in the atmosphere normally occurring before a storm.

  9. You think that’s cool? Wait until you see rainbow clouds, when ice particles trapped in the clouds produce the colour of the rainbow. Only ever seen it once and I was able to take a picture of it, albeit a not great quality one but it’s the only time I’ve ever seen it!

  14. I believe they’re called moon halos, IIRC they’re basically moon rainbows. Saw one one on a clear Halloween maybe 8 years ago

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