Moon Cross

On Sunday, 21 August I had slept in as usual on this day off...and in late morning I was working out on one of the exercise bicycles, which was located on the mezzanine of the science lab of the new elevated station. Suddenly people started to appear and climb the stairs to look out the roof hatch, pointing excitedly and taking photos. So....I had to get curious and after a look I went and grabbed my camera. Here is what was being looked at...

I tried a number of different exposure combinations in a vain effort to produce a photograph that looked like what was visible to the naked eye--the full moon was incredibly bright, the sky was black as seen in the dark photo, and the ground (and, in the foreground, the roof of the station) were all quite visible as seen in the lighter photos. In any case, the effect of a cross was extremely dramatic--perhaps an overly bright rendition of what is sometimes depicted as the Christmas Star that the Wise Men followed. But this was not a picture, it was real...just there in front of us. Unlike most of the photos on this site, the large photos are the original unedited ones (1 or 2 MB) with the camera exposure data still attached to the jpg file. Here are a couple more views:

This effect was presumably caused by light refraction from ice crystals, in a phenomenon similar to that which produces the more common and familiar sun dogs. The weather conditions were probably "in the 80s" as we would say, meaning somewhere below -80°F. But we were taking these photos while standing on a ladder up to the roof hatch (and, for some of the photos, propping my camera on a mini tripod resting on the roof), so the warm air from the heated station kept me quite warm--a good thing since I was in my normal exercise clothes--shorts and T-shirt. For now, a look at where these photos were taken...the roof hatches are plainly visible on the science lab.