Moon Dog and a Diffraction Corona

[coatesg]

Couple of quick snaps from the 22nd. 

One showing a (rarely coloured) moon dog (paraselene) caused by refraction in hexagonal ice crystals in the cirrus/cirrostratus (the bright horizontal line is a contrail); the other (taken later) through cirrocumulus (mackerel sky!) shows a diffraction corona - the coloured corona at at a few lunar radii is due to diffraction of light by water droplets. The size of the droplets determines the size of the corona.

Both images taken on my phone - pleasantly surprised that it managed to capture both effectively!

 

[RichM63]

Nice one.

Had a full halo here Xmas eve, but too late to risk picking up one of the cameras!