Rainbow Over the Moon

Photographer: Heidi Needham
Summary Author: Heidi Needham, Jim Foster 

The photo above shows a drowsy, waning gibbous Moon floating behind a rousing rainbow. It was captured just after dawn on the Caribbean coastline of Quintana Roo, Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula. The time of the photograph was 6:23 a.m. on June 22, 2008. Rainbows can be seen whenever the Sun is no more than 43 degrees above the horizon -- about half way up the sky. If the Sun is higher than this, the bow will be below the viewer's horizon.