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Cecille Kennedy
Depoe Bay, Oregon
02/26/2023
10:10 pm

Equipment Details:

Nikon D850. 14mm, 3sec, f/3.2, ISO 1250

Post-processing Details:

crop in Photoshop, sharpen in Affinity

Image Details:

A white halo appeared around the moon tonight.
A few stars are visible.
The red light on the ocean is the red bell buoy, the white light the whistle buoy.

The information below, from the blog Treehugger, provides information about lunar halos.
“What Causes a Ring to Appear Around the Moon?” from Treehugger by Tiffany Means
Lunar halos are caused by thin, wispy, cirrus and cirrostratus clouds (veil-like clouds that float 20,000 plus feet (6 km) above our head) and the refraction and reflection of moonlight by their ice crystals. As moonlight shines through the cirrus clouds, it strikes the cloud's millions of tiny ice crystals and refracts, or bends and changes direction, as it enters each. The light then refracts again as it exits a crystal's other side.
How much the moonlight bends depends on the size and shape of the crystal itself. In the case of lunar halos, the ice crystals are tiny pencil-shaped (hexagonal) columns measuring less than 20 microns across.1 And they all bend light at a 22-degree angle from its original path. (If you've ever heard lunar halos referred to as "22-degree halos," this is why.)
The fact that light is dispersed in this way in all directions (above, below, beside, and diagonal) to the moon is what creates the characteristic circular shape.