The highly reddened full moon is rising through a strong temperature inversion - loosely speaking, unusually cooler air beneath warmer. The cool air was probably a result of contact with the cold ocean. Within the inversion the moonlight is strongly refracted to form a highly flattened lunar slice. Above that is an undistorted segment but even that image suffers as its top is progressively obscured by a layer of haze or mist.
Moonrise and moonset mirages are less noticed than their brighter solar counterparts but there are plenty of them. Click the thumbnails. |
