Rainbow Halo Around Moon
November 2, 2009 by Medan Indonesia
Filed under Happenings, Information, Medan History
Rainbow Halo around the Moon seen in Medan
On 02 November 2009 around 22.30 WIB in Medan, North Sumatra Indonesia, a magnificent view of rainbow halo around the moon appears in Medan. We have seen several Rainbow Halo around the Sun before in Medan, but just for tonight, it appears around the Moon!
picture of the rainbow halo around the moon as seen and taken from our rooftop 
you can see the staircase of our rooftop its a rare sight for a rainbow halo to appear at night around the moon.
This halo moon sight 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.
In the study of meteorology, the term halo can refer to several optical phenomena whereas sunlight or moonlight is being either reflected or refracted (or a combination of both) by high altitude cirrus clouds, resulting in bright rings.
A ring of light 22 degrees from the moon (or sun) is the most common type of halo observed from earth and is formed by millions of hexagonal ice crystals with diameters less than 20.5 micrometers within the clouds.
A halo around the moon is often a warning that stormy weather is coming. The ice crystals that create halos come in cirrus clouds, which often come before warm fronts or other weather systems that can bring rain.
True enough, Badan Meteorologi Klimatologi dan Geofisika (BMKG) Indonesia warns of thunderstorms in several areas of Indonesia including North Sumatra as reported in MedanTalk.com.
Planet Jupiter and Moon Halo
Some good pictures of Moon Halo taken in other parts of the world with Planet Jupiter and Moon Halo!
picture of moon halo by Juan Carlos Casado
The town in the foreground of the above picture is San Sebastian, Spain. The distant planet Jupiter appears by chance on the halo’s upper right.
Jupiter and the full moon have been pleasingly close together all weekend on March 5th, Philippe Moussette of Québec, Canada, photographed them both surrounded by a lovely 22′ moon halo
Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley remarks on Moussette’s image of the moon halo,that “it looks like two halos: (1) a 22º halo and (2) a circumscribed halo, which surrounds the 22º halo, touching it at the top and bottom.”
A similar Sun Halo may be visible during the day. Previous post and pictures of Rainbow Halo around the Sun in Medan
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Thank you for sharing.
But I am only attracted and concern to the staircase on your roof top.I don’t think it is safe for children.It remind me of once a little girl who put her head between such metal bar and her head got stuck.I manage to pull her out from the other side as her body was fortunately small.But if some children got stuck in this situation especially watching rainbow at night,it will be dangerous to pull her out to the high open area.Do give a thought on safety.Sorry,I am just concern.Nothing offensive..
I saw such thing in lampung! But I didn’t know that it was such an rainbow…. But it was beautiful
Hi Agongkia,
Thank you for your concern, its not as dangerous as it seems and our kids do not go up to the upper deck (rooftop)
Medan Indonesia:
In the pictures taken from Medan, what is the small blue rounded object under the moon? It doesn’t seem like Jupiter as the planet looks very tiny in the pictures taken from Spain and Canada.
Kenji,
You spotted something…
Yes, the top two pictures were taken in Medan. I dont think its Jupiter, it may just be from our flash, we didnt notice while we took the pictures.
Jupiter can be seen in the other two pictures below.
Moderator,
Hahaha.. You got a nice pair of camera and flash which can create sky objects. BTW, how to create other emoticons other than the smiley?
Actually the picture taken in Medan really is showing Jupiter and the Moon Halo, and it’s not a camera flash, because camera flash only happen, when you shot a picture behind a glass window or a glass roof, the flash will be reflected through the glass. The Jupiter seems bigger and closer to in Medan and smaller and farther in Canada, Spain, because we are on the tropic region, that makes us closer to the Moon. Not only Jupiter, the Moon itself is bigger if we look from tropical area than sub tropical area. So we can imagine, what’s the moon and of course Jupiter’s size would be if we look from the Polar region, such as Canada.
WOW! Thank you for the explanation John.
You are quite right, I just realized I took one of the pictures with flash and one without flash.
Without an astronomer’s eye, I totally did not realize its Jupiter and that we can actually SEE Jupiter from Earth!
Until I came across the pictures taken in Canada and Spain,
looks like we caught Jupiter by surprise
John,
I didn’t know Jupiter could be seen so big from Earth (even from equator). And can you explain why the color of Jupiter is blue while those of moon is white in the pictures taken from Medan? Logically, though the Moon is brighter and the Jupiter is dimmer but they should have same color, right?
Kenji,
Well, now you know that we can see Jupiter so big from Earth, specially from the equator. Moon is brighter because, just like our planet, the nearest light source in our galaxy is The Sun and, it’s closer to the Sun than The Jupiter, that’s why Jupiter is dimmer, and I think you already know that. Why is it blue? Let’s say like this, what happen in the universe is not like television, when you adjust the contrast and the brightness, the only changing is the contrast and the brightness, but with this galaxy the darkness of the sky intervene the sun light and it change into blue, not grey or dark white. The same thing happen at a day, the bright clear sky without clouds always a blue sky and not white sky.
John,
Thanks for your explanation but I still don’t understand yet. In day time, the sky is blue because when sun light (which actually consists of several colors) reaches the atmosphere of Earth, lights with longer wavelength passes through but those with shorter wavelength are absorbed by the gas particles and dusts of the atmosphere and then get scattered to all direction of the sky. The blue light is the most absorbed and radiated and therefore the sky looks blue.
Since you said the blue color of Jupiter is the same thing as the blue sky of Earth, I suppose you mean the blue color of Jupiter is due to sun light hitting the atmosphere of Jupiter. If so, why doesn’t the moon in that photo look blue? The moon also has atmosphere, right?
Nope, Moon doesn’t have atmosphere.
According to NASA ( http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/23oct_ladee.htm ) the moon does have an atmosphere though its atmosphere is thin.
If the moon looks white instead of blue because its atmosphere is thin, why does Mars (which also has a thin atmosphere) look red?
And why does Venus (which has a dense atmosphere) look white instead of blue?
Well, from your question seems like you’re very interested in Astronomy. You can consult those questions in the website that seems like, you already know http://www.nasa.gov they got the detail answer and the most suitable organization to answer all that you need to know about this magnificent universe, my only interest is the Halo in Medan, and Jupiter.
omg look at the first two pictures…. is that a UFO I see there the little spot next to the moon
Beautiful photos there. I’m very interested in atmospheric optics like these, and I tried to record them on my blog/facebook…
About the bright object under the moon, I think it’s either the Jupiter but diffused because of the miss-focus, or it’s actually a “ghosting” caused by the camera lens. You can found many of the explanations of it on the internet… I see it quite often because I almost always bring a camera with me, and it usually appears when you point the camera to a very bright object, in subject to dark surroundings…