The night was sort of a wash for the telescope, so the Canon 350D was set up on the photo tripod and I began taking pictures of this nice Lunar 22-degree halo. Haloes are caused by ice crystals in clouds (click here for more information).
This one spanned from Libra to Virgo. Muphrid is to the upper right, and Spica is just out of the frame on the western edge of the halo.
Each of the 25-second ISO 400 shots in auto white balance yielded something entirely different from the next, with some quickly-moving lower level clouds. I wanted to overexpose the Moon to be sure to capture the halo and some of the background stars. At one point a commercial airliner had flown through the upper level moisture layer, creating a most unique shadow that stretched across the sky. The shadow eventually crossed over the Moon via upper wind currents, adding for some more rare photographic opportunities.
