Ring Around the Moon ?

[Essex Stargazer]

15th at around 01.45

Bright moon  , slightly misty conditions

A huge ring visible around the moon , The security guard where I work dragged me out to see it

Quite spectacular , I have never seen this before in my time on Earth , It lasted for over one hour

It looked like a Ferris wheel / London eye , the moon as the central hub and the ring around the outside and it was a perfect ring

Anyone know what it was or what causes it to happen , I am baffled and so are the people at work

they all looked at me for the answer

[cotterless45]

Very cool,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_ring

Nick.

[starman1969]

I see quite a lot of moon halos on Flickr, but despite always looking for one I've not sure if I've seen a proper one myself. I've seen small rings around the moon, but not the really large 'ferris wheel' types.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

During cold, hazy night you can frequently see them. It's the same phenomenon as a halo around the sun, lovely effect of ice crystals in the upper atmosphere

[Pig]

You see the Moon just gets better and better   I have seen quite a few nice halo's its surprising how unusual they can be at times.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

In really bright cases, other features like a tangential arc or moon dogs can also be seen. I have only ever been able to capture sun dogs and an upper tangential arc for the sun

[wheresthetorch?]

You can sometimes see these ice rings around the sun as well - can be quite spectacular.

[leelee970]

Yes it was a very lovely sight the other night. Shame I didn't have my DSLR to capture it.

Lee

[Rockrae78]

I've seen a sun halo, but never a moon one.  Everytime someone on twitter is raving about a moon halo, I go outside to find wall-to-wall cloud! Hmph! 

[reddoss]

The ring caused by the refraction of light by small ice crystals in high level cloud is known as an interference function in physics.

It's diameter is related to how far apart the ice crystals are, and the thickness of the the ring itself indicates how well ordered the crystals are.

[Essex Stargazer]

Thanks for the info

I will let everyone at work know the results

[M4lcs67]

A friend of mine told me recently of a trip he made up to Fort William and he saw a moon Halo. Pretty spectacular by all accounts.