weird solar system stuff

hi everyone,

I'm reading a copy of William Corliss' "Mysterious Universe" I purchased recently on Amazon.com and there's an amazing amount of weird observations quoted; e.g. shape of the zodiacal light, second moons of Earth, satellites of Venus, markings on the Moon, early sightings of the rings of Uranus. Fascinating stuff!

what I'd be interesting in hearing of is any of your own observations of the unusual. For example, one of the IAS people asked me about a curious "rind" appearance to the crescent portion of the Moon when seen with Earthshine. Maybe we could compile our own little version of the "out-of-the-ordinary" as I'd like to write up something for Arcturus.

many thanks!

John F.
SDAS

Would seeing a "Moon Dog" count as out of the ordinary? Basically the same as a Sun Dog but at night and caused by the moon. Only saw it once when I was visiting the Urania Public Observatory in Antwerp, Belgium.

Another wiered atmospheric thing I manged ot see from th etop of te Tower in Urania was a huge Pillar in the sky that we THINK was caused by ice crystals. It was basically a very thing but very bright spike of light startign at the horizon and extending up for a bout 30 degrees. From the very top of the tower containing the dome in Urania we could just see that the spike originated from one of the perpetual flames at the top of one of the chimneys of the Esso Refinery in Antwerp Harbour. I have never seen anything like it before or since and the guys from the observatory (who have been there for YEARS) had never seen the likes of it before either.

hi Bart,

I've never seen a moon dog so well done on that -- the fact that the light source (the Moon itself) is not as brilliant as the Sun means they are rare enough. Managed to see a Moon rainbow once before. No colour to the naked eye as again, the original light source is faint (relatively speaking!)

the other observation sounds like a light pillar -- similar to a Sun pillar and yes, caused by flat ice crystals falling horizontally through the air. It's like a dropped paper plate slowly fluttering to the flow.

each ice crystal is acting like a tiny mirror and reflecting the light source. In this case, the flame would have been quite bright. Light pillars from street lights per se have been photographed and earlier this year spaceweather.com had a photo of a light pillar produced by Venus! Fantastic photo and extremely rare.

John