Lunar Corona Over Turin, Italy
December 27, 2014
Several colorful rings surround the aureole of this lunar corona observed above the city of Turin, Italy on the night of November 2014. The Moon is a little more than half-illuminated (waxing gibbous), but it appears fuller since the image is slightly overexposed to capture the lovely color of the coronal rings. Lunar coronas are frequently sighted whenever mid-level clouds, composed of very fine water droplets, move in front of the lunar disk. Like the cloudbow and glory, coronas result from diffraction of sunlight by the minute droplets.
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