Ephemera

I saw my first moon pillar last night while driving through the dark and lonely hills along Route 89 in central Vermont.

moon pillar 
noun Astronomy

A halo phenomenon in which a vertical streak of light appears above
and below the moon, believed to be caused by the reflection of
moonlight by ice crystals with vertical axes.

I had never noticed such a bright beam of light heading straight down from the moon before and I assumed it was caused by my car’s dirty window. A blast of 20ºF air woke me up and made me realize that it was real. When the moon passed behind a few silver-lined clouds the effect was just plain gorgeous.

I briefly considered pulling off the highway to take a few photos before remembering that my little my point-and-shoot camera wouldn’t be able to do much with the nighttime scene. So I’m glad that Jim Saueressig witnessed the same phenomenon all the way out in Kansas last night and took this photo. And this one.