Sunday, June 03, 2007

Moonbows

The LA Times recently printed this spectacular photo of a moonbow over Yosemite falls at night, (courtesy of Dr Karl and Radio 5's 'Up all Night' programme). A moonbow is a rainbow at night. Light from the full moon, shining upon water vapour in the air, can produce a rainbow via the same mechanism by which light from the Sun produces a daytime rainbow. The full Moon is required to produce sufficient light to excite the colour receptors in the eye.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How beautiful. I just thought stoned people saw such things in Yosemite and the Grand Canyon at night -- I didn't know moonbows were *real*. Wow.

Anonymous said...

Incredible - it would be great to see this live.