Gargle Unto the MoonSome time ago when it was still Winter here, I had occasion to look up, straight up, straight into a deep crystal bell of a sky to look at the full moon. There was a ring of bright blue light around the moon, and my fists told me that the ring had a diameter of maybe twenty degrees (one's fist, extended a full arm's length, is maybe more or less ten degrees of sky).
If one does a Google search for "ring around a full moon", one gets a lot of odd stuff. However: what I saw that night is called a Lunar Halo, and is twenty-two degrees across, and is quite a sight to see.
Last night was another night of bell-clear air, but the moon was only a slim quiver of light, a giant fingernail clipping in the night sky. Behind it, the darkness of the moon was itself a very mellow grey, and I wondered at it: does the metropolitan complex of the northeast bit of this continent generate that much light?
I do not know. I heave read someplace that the percentage of land in this country where one can make out the milky way at night against the light pollution is very, very small.
Bother.
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