How is a moonbow produced differently then a rainbow?”
Have you ever seen a moonbow? Just as rainbows are lit by the Sun, moonbows are lit by the Moon. Since the Sun is so much brighter than the Moon, sunlit rainbows are much brighter and more commonly seen than moonbows. The above movie captures not only a moonbow, but several rainbows, moving clouds, and the starry sky visible in 2009 February over Patagonia in Chile. The slight movement of the rainbows is due to the changing sky position of the Sun. Since moonlight is itself reflected sunlight, the colors are nearly the same. Both rainbows and moonbows are created by light being scattered inside small water droplets, typically from a nearby rainfall. The raindrops each act as miniature prisms, together creating the picturesque spectrum of colors seen.
Just as rainbows are lit by the Sun, moonbows are lit by the Moon. Since the Sun is so much brighter than the Moon, sunlit rainbows are much brighter and more commonly seen than moonbows. The above movie captures not only a moonbow, but several rainbows, moving clouds, and the starry sky visible in 2009 February over Patagonia in Chile. The slight movement of the rainbows is due to the changing sky position of the Sun. Since moonlight is itself reflected sunlight, the colors are nearly the same. Both rainbows and moonbows are created by light being scattered inside small water droplets, typically from a nearby rainfall. The raindrops each act as miniature prisms, together creating the picturesque spectrum of colors seen.
A moonbow (also known as a lunar rainbow, lunar bow or white rainbow) is a rainbow produced by light reflected off the surface of the moon rather than from direct sunlight. Moonbows are relatively faint, due to the smaller amount of light reflected from the surface of the Moon. They are always in the opposite part of the sky from the moon. It is difficult for the human eye to discern colors in a moonbow because the light is usually too faint to excite the cone color receptors in human eyes. As a result, they often appear to be white. However, the colors in a moonbow do appear in long exposure photographs. A colored circle around the moon is not a moonbow—it is usually a 22° halo produced by refraction through hexagonal ice crystals in cirrus cloud. Colored rings close to the moon are a corona, a diffraction phenomenon produced by very small water droplets or ice crystals in clouds.
