At the end of my day, I went downstairs to package up the huge quantity of soup I’d made (and never made the barley for it…) and then decided to take the garbage and some recycling out. The thermometer said it was about 28F as I went through the door. The moon was out.
After my task was done, I looked up at the moon. A bank of clouds was moving up towards the moon,which seemed odd enough but the leading edge was wispy and it looked like smoke billowing up. Eventually the cloud covered the moon but didn’t conceal it – sounds impossible, no? Then there was a really big, thick orange ring around the moon through the clouds. The thickness was probably as big as the moon itself but the circle was several moon widths in radius.
I can say I have seen lots of icy rings around the moon but nothing quite like this dark orange ring. No doubt the practical explanation has to do with refraction through the cloud. Not really interested in the practical. It looked very mysterious.
