Moonbows on top of Moonbows
Once in a while you're in the right place at just the right time
Today on our way home from Fairbanks, a 4 hour trip to the nearest Walmart and Home Depot, we just happened to be in just the right place at just the right time. I was close to dozing off in the passenger seat when my husband Jonathan told me to look out the window.
"Oh my gosh! Stop the truck!!!" I said in my usual over-reactive way when it comes to the beauty of nature.
"What, what's wrong?!" he quickly replied.
"Nothing's wrong, LOOK at THAT! I need a picture!" So he pulled over as soon as he found a wide spot in the shoulder and I jumped out of the truck, taking pictures as the spectacle got better and better. The full moon had a full 360 degree moonbow around it. But not only that, there was one perpendicular to that one, that circumnavigated the entire sky! And not only THAT, but there was an UPSIDE DOWN moonbow on top of the moon, in rainbow colors! I could not believe my eyes, and the phenomenon and the awe it inspired in me defy description. We stood there for 5 minutes, and then it began to fade away. We got back in the truck, drove down the highway, and in less than 1/2 a mile, it was gone.
The ice fog had created just the right conditions for refracting light around the moon in "moonbows" on three different planes. This is something I've never seen before, and am quite certain I never will again in my lifetime.
Sometimes you're in just the right place at just the right time to witness something so beautiful and rare it takes your breath away.
