Post by tjaman on Jan 31, 2007 11:50:27 GMT -5
I've been seeing some amazing things lately.
Monday it was so cold that driving home I saw not just sundogs, but an actual arc of a rainbow around the sun. I saw the same thing this morning while driving to work -- a segment of rainbow extending from the horizon and well into the sky.
And last night I thought I might be going a little bit mad.
I was out walking (because that's just what I apparently do these days). Even though it was a bit colder than I'd have considered ideal, I had the wind at my back for the first part of the way and I decided to just keep walking. I shifted from deciding to take a two-mile walk to a 3.5-mile walk, and then, for no reason I can immediately fathom, decided to just keep going and make it a 5-mile walk.
And that was OK, but I was starting to get a little tired. The bite had gone out of the wind when I was facing into it, at least, and the evening had settled down as being more or less pleasant.
And then I saw the moon.
It wasn't completely full, I don't think, but it was incredibly gibbous, and in this last stretch of my walk I had a nice view of it. It was more or less directly overhead.
And what I was seeing was this ginormous ghostly ring around it.
At first I thought my eyes were cold and I was seeing things incorrectly, but I didn't see anything like auras or a halo effect on any of the other lights I was seeing. When I looked up, the ring wasn't perfectly formed -- a little wispy -- but it was unbroken, way overhead and several miles across, with the moon directly at its center.
I thought maybe the light hazy cloud cover we had was responsible for the effect because that was essentially the level where the seemingly reflected light was focused, but I couldn't remember ever seeing anything like this before. My mind didn't even have a word for it. I didn't dare take a photo of it for fear that it was all just in my head, but to be honest the ring was so subtle I didn't expect my camera would pick it up anyway (not that I had my camera with me).
As I moved from the housing development back into the trees and houses my view of the moon became obstructed and I couldn't see it or the effect anymore.
But for a few moments, the world had a hushed wonder that it hasn't had for quite some time, and I got to experience something that I can honestly say I don't see every day.
Monday it was so cold that driving home I saw not just sundogs, but an actual arc of a rainbow around the sun. I saw the same thing this morning while driving to work -- a segment of rainbow extending from the horizon and well into the sky.
And last night I thought I might be going a little bit mad.
I was out walking (because that's just what I apparently do these days). Even though it was a bit colder than I'd have considered ideal, I had the wind at my back for the first part of the way and I decided to just keep walking. I shifted from deciding to take a two-mile walk to a 3.5-mile walk, and then, for no reason I can immediately fathom, decided to just keep going and make it a 5-mile walk.
And that was OK, but I was starting to get a little tired. The bite had gone out of the wind when I was facing into it, at least, and the evening had settled down as being more or less pleasant.
And then I saw the moon.
It wasn't completely full, I don't think, but it was incredibly gibbous, and in this last stretch of my walk I had a nice view of it. It was more or less directly overhead.
And what I was seeing was this ginormous ghostly ring around it.
At first I thought my eyes were cold and I was seeing things incorrectly, but I didn't see anything like auras or a halo effect on any of the other lights I was seeing. When I looked up, the ring wasn't perfectly formed -- a little wispy -- but it was unbroken, way overhead and several miles across, with the moon directly at its center.
I thought maybe the light hazy cloud cover we had was responsible for the effect because that was essentially the level where the seemingly reflected light was focused, but I couldn't remember ever seeing anything like this before. My mind didn't even have a word for it. I didn't dare take a photo of it for fear that it was all just in my head, but to be honest the ring was so subtle I didn't expect my camera would pick it up anyway (not that I had my camera with me).
As I moved from the housing development back into the trees and houses my view of the moon became obstructed and I couldn't see it or the effect anymore.
But for a few moments, the world had a hushed wonder that it hasn't had for quite some time, and I got to experience something that I can honestly say I don't see every day.