OPOD - Near & Far

Near & Far ~ Rob Kaufman (site) of Bright, Victoria, Australia caught this scene on Friday evening (24 Sept). The moon is centre field and above it is bright 592 million km distant Jupiter.

Events in our own atmosphere produce the other effects. Small and randomly oriented ice crystals in high (5-10km) cold cirrus haze give a faint and diffuse 22° halo.

A higher drifting contrail throws its moon generated shadow down onto the same cirrus layer.

"I live in a country area directly below the main Sydney-Melbourne air route and consequently see many contrails, but I can't remember seeing anything quite as stark as this before. "

A bonus earlier in the evening was an aureole/corona around Venus.

"Gauging from the nearby stars, the corona's diameter is approximately 25 arc minutes". That suggests that the droplet or ice crystal (likely the latter) producing the diffraction were ~150 micron across or smaller.

Canon 400D on tripod, @ 200mm 4 sec exposure at ISO 800, F/5.6