Abstract
ON the evening of Saturday, October 17, at about 6.30 p.m., the rare and interesting phenomenon of a lunar rainbow was observed from Patterdale, Westmoreland. On the south-east, the moon, which had just risen, brightened the sky behind the mountains, while on the north-west there hung a uniformly dark and unbroken screen of haze or rain-cloud, which lightened off somewhat and was more scattered on the extreme west. With its highest point lying almost exactly north-west, a semicircle of pale whitish light was projected against this vapoury curtain. The bow was quite complete, but much brighter and sharper on its northern are than on that falling south. The brighter portion fell over weird and clear into Glenridding (a favourite haunt of sun-painted rainbows), and as seen striped against the dark hill-sides of that valley, appeared to emit a pale blue phosphorescent glare. At one time a shred of the dark smoky haze scudded over, but did not completely obscure the highest reaches of the spectral light. The radius appeared smaller than in the case of an ordinary solar rainbow, and the breadth of beam was about one-half thereof, or perhaps rather less. The spectacle having lasted for about eight minutes, light rain began to fall, and then the sky in a very short time became quite clear and star-lit, and all was over.
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KEEGAN, P. A Lunar Rainbow. Nature 44, 591 (1891). https://doi.org/10.1038/044591b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/044591b0
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