The Moon just now in the UK. No idea what is creating the halo

  • livus@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    the much rarer 46° halo

    If that’s the really huge halo that seems to take up most of the sky, I’ve only seen that perhaps 3x in my life.

    Are they not collectively called coronas, in your part of the world? They are here.

    • skeletorfw@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yeah that’s the one! Only seen it once (coinciding with a supermoon which was frankly surreal).

      Coronas are a bit different I believe, though another one of the same group. I’ve always just called them their individual names, with coronas being tighter and more spectrally-distorting than halos. Maybe the only other collective name I’ve heard would be the minimally descriptive “atmospheric phenomenon” but that’s no fun at all.

      Edit: Just took a brief look and indeed coronas are related but formed by refraction through water droplets rather than ice crystals! Cool to know!