Tonight, there was a gigantic rainbow halo around the moon. I did my best to take a picture of it--err, actually I took ten pictures of it, but I doubt any will come out. Fortunately, someone with a lot more skill and much better equipment managed to capture a similar moon halo in San Sebastian, Spain in March 2000.
According to the NASA site where the picture is hosted, this phenomenon occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius of the Moon Halo. A similar Sun Halo may be visible during the day.


Note: Comments with a light blue background were made by the site owner.
oh my god. i was having a cig
oh my god. i was having a cigarette on my balcony and i saw it too.
Rainbow surrounding the moon
I saw this on Sunday aswell. Now that I think about it, do you think that had anything to do with the tsunami?
I suppose it's possible, but
I suppose it's possible, but I guess that depends on what causes them. And I have no idea what that is.