Gibbous Moon Corona
November 14, 2004
Provided by: Decoster Jos
Summary authors & editors: Decoster Jos; Jim Foster
The above photo of a lunar corona was taken from Molenbeek-Wersbeek, Belgium on October 30, 2004. On this rather foggy evening, a well defined series of coronal rings accented the waning gibbous Moon (3 days past full). The uniform size fog droplets deflect the moonlight (diffraction) around the outside of the drops in such a way to form rings of light and shadow. Smaller drops, such as produced in fog, result in greater diffraction angles and a larger corona. See also the Earth Science Picture of the Day for February 8, 2004.
Photo details: Sony V1 digital still camera,. 7-28 mm zoom lens (equivalent to a 34-136 mm zoom lens on a 35 mm camera), aperture f4.0 , 100, shutter speed of approximately 2 seconds. Increasing the exposure time enabled the corona to be more clearly visible and made the Moon look full. The camera was positioned on a brick wall.
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