A photographer captured photo of a rare lunar rainbow or ‘moonbow’ illuminating the night sky in North Yorkshire, U.K. While not as spectacular as its daytime cousin the rainbow, a moonbow is produced when moonlight refracts through water droplets in the air. Moonbows are rarer than rainbows because a variety of weather and astronomical conditions have to be just right for them to be created. They are much fainter than rainbows, due to the smaller amount of light reflected from the surface of the moon.
Lunar rainbows are always in the opposite part of the sky from the Moon and most easily viewed when the Moon is nearly full.
They are relatively rare because they need a number of conditions to appear. The Moon must be less than 42 degrees high in the sky, the sky must be very dark and there must be rain falling opposite the Moon. Moon bows are more common near waterfalls.
The phenomena should not be confused with Moon rings, which appear like circles around the Moon. These are caused by the refraction of light through ice crystals suspended in the upper atmosphere.
Picture Credit : Google
