Sky-moon picture-What is this?

[gendarmee]

Chanced too gaze at the sky at 3 am last night, and i saw this that i'd never ever seen before. The moon had this circle around it and at the circumference were Rainbow colors, it quite faded away by the time i gathered the cam & tripod and got too the terrace.
Can anyone explain this phenomenon?

Here's a picture (Doesn't look as spectacular in the pic as it looked in the sky, i wish my cam had a little wider angle lense)

Larger picture
http://i36.tinypic.com/2d0h1zo.jpg

 

[LaFoto]

The moon shone though a thin layer of clouds, and since it reflects bright light (it is actually QUITE bright), it illuminated the clouds and created a rainbow on the tiny droplets which acted like prisms.

 

[pasteofanchovie]

I'm pretty sure that it is a moon dog, or a 22° halo, but it could possibly have been a rare moonbow that went around the moon. Moon dogs almost always appear white, so you may have been very lucky last night!

 

[RyanMillerPhoto]

Cant quite remember if this is only with the Sun, but ice crystal high up in the atmosphere can create a neat set of colors with the prism effect.

 

[astrostu]

A combination of the above . It's the 22° ice crystals in high-altitude clouds refracting the moonlight like a prism, making a rainbow in a circle around the moon. This also happens with the sun (though it's harder to see because the sun is so much brighter relative to the rainbow).

 

[WV350Z]

22 degree id say also they are very beautiful..i seen one on a cruise to the bahamas..and with no clouds just in darkness it is truely amazing!

 

[Helen B]

Here's a solar halo. It was taken with a 20 mm lens on full frame 35 mm film.

Best,
Helen

 

[realitycheck3907]

While we're on the moon thing I have a question for you guys. I tried to just take a few snaps of the moon real quick last night just to see what I got. I could not get any detail of the moon, it was just a bright ball. I shot it with my 300mm lens. Which is not as close as I would like, but no matter how I shot it there was no detail. Generally what shutter speed do you guys shoot at to get the dtail of the moon?

 

[yamadak13]

While we're on the moon thing I have a question for you guys. I tried to just take a few snaps of the moon real quick last night just to see what I got. I could not get any detail of the moon, it was just a bright ball. I shot it with my 300mm lens. Which is not as close as I would like, but no matter how I shot it there was no detail. Generally what shutter speed do you guys shoot at to get the dtail of the moon?

I would like to know this same thing. I sat out last night with a tripod and my 300mm lens and just couldn't get any detail either. I tried so many settings, but just couldn't get it quite right.

 

[hydro psyche]

I tried shooting it last night as well with my 150mm, which is nowhere near even your guys 300mm's, and I was able to get some detail. I think I would've had more detail if I waited until later in the night when the moon was higher in the sky and didn't have as much atmosphere to "shoot through". I'm sure the dirty air over new york city where I was attempting this didn't help either.

I used a tripod, full manual mode, 1/100 shutter, f16, and ISO 100. I'm curious to see how they'd look with the 300mm lens. I'll post a sample of what I got tomorrow.

 

[Dao]

Set the camera to manual exposure mode. And then treat the moon as an object in daylight. (Like fast shutter speed with smaller aperture (larger number)