Strange looking moon 25/2...

[Gregnat73]

Hi

I was looking at the moon earlier (through 15x50 bins) and it was looking what can only be described as "tatty"!! It had a very uneven edge and almost seemed to have small "rips" and bits missing. I'm guessing it was due to it's closeness to the horizon (I'd guess it had risen about 10º) and the angle of the sunlight hitting features around the edge (now its risen higher, it's back to normal) but it looked really interesting especially with the orange colour (which I know is due to atmospheric effects).

I managed to grab a quick (and not very good) snap with a digital camera which shows some of the undulating edge but it was far more evident through the bins...

moon by g.nat, on Flickr

I was just wondering if this is a common effect...

Cheers

Greg

[Steve Ward]

It's due to looking through a thick slice of the atmosphere with all its turbulence.

Think yourself lucky to be seeing it at all . . .

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

If the image posted was fairly stable, it is due to layers of air of different temperatures causing refraction. I have seen this on the sun during sunset quite often

[E621Keith]

It's atmospheric turbulence. You see similar effects on sunny days if you look at distance objects on the ground.