Moon Rainbow

Thursday night just as I got home, I saw something I have never seen before, and not sure if I will ever see again. The moon was full and there was a rain storm coming in from the west. Looking at the clouds there was an arc of white in the clouds. I thought maybe it was a rainbow caused by the moon light, so I had my family come look at it. When they all came out, the rainbow was better defined and you could tell it was a rainbow, except the only color you could see in it was the whitish moon color.

The digital camera was sitting on a tripod in the family room so I rushed it out and took a 15 sec exposure picture. It was amazing. In the picture the colors of the rainbow revealed themselves. It may have been the best picture I have ever taken. However there was no memory card in the camera, so after displaying the picture on the preview screen the camera then tossed it to bit heaven.

I ran back into the house and found the memory card, but by the time I got it in the camera the rainbow was gone.

Thinking about it, the only time you could see a rainbow like this would be to have the following:

• It must be late enough to be dark
• There must be a full moon, or nearly a full moon
  
• There needs to be rain on the opposite side of the sky as the moon

I did some searching on the internet and found a few pictures of moon rainbows using a waterfall. Cool, but not quite the same as a rainbow made by rain and the moon.