Moonbows on top of Moonbows

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.  A moonbow is just like a rainbow, except that it is ice crystals refracting the light instead of raindrops.

People come to Alaska to view the Northern Lights, or "Aurora Borealis", but this to me was much more rare and just as beautiful!  It happened to be a full moon, with just the right amount of ice fog in just the right layers visible at the exact location we were driving through on our way home that night.  Amazing.

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.