The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 2 (of 3) / or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

November 16.

Extraordinary Lunar Halo.

On the night of this day in 1823, about half past nine o’clock, Dr. T. Forster observed a very remarkable and brilliant phenomenon about the moon. It was a coloured discoid halo, consisting of six several concentric circles; the nearest to the moon, or the first disk around her, being dull white, then followed circles of orange, violet, crimson, green, and vermillion; the latter, or outermost, subtending in its diameter an angle of above ten degrees. This phenomenon was evidently produced by a refraction in the white mist of a stratus, which prevailed through the night, but it varied in its colours, as well as in its brilliancy, at different times.[500]

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