I saw a moonbow once, in a caribbean night sky, it was just grey shades. What caused this?

Answer 1

What caused the moonbow, or what caused the gray shades?

You got a couple of answers about the moonbow ... as for the shades of gray:

The colors are there of course = the light is refracted and separates into it's various wavelengths. The reason you only saw gray shades is because the light was too dim to activate the color vision system of your retina - the cones. Cones only operate at relatively high light intensities, and so in dim light they aren't active, and you only see shades of gray using your rods.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

We live in the Canaries and have seen moonbows a few times. (Not having smoked anything exotic at the time!). We have always assumed this is a night-time rainbow and that the silvery shades reflect the moon whereas a rainbow reflects the sun. We are looking forward to learned, scientific answers to your question as we are very interested in this. Moonbows are very beautiful.

Answer 3

Its caused by the light from the moon reflecting ice chrystals & that cannot be seen as clouds, but are about 30 to 50 miles high up in the atmosphire.

Answer 4

Sometimes this happens because of ice crystals high up in the atmosphere. Cirrus clouds, those wispy, feathery clouds you see sometimes, are the highest clouds, and they're made of ice crystals, not water droplets. Ice crystals can reflect moonlight to make a 'ring' around the moon. In the old days it was seen as a sign that bad weather was coming.

Answer 5

Hi. It is caused by the same refraction as a rainbow. http://www.answers.com/moonbow?cat=technology&gwp=13 but is much too dim to see colors.

Answer 6

Same cause as a rainbow, it's just not as bright. Here's a link to some lunar rainbow pics.

http://www.calvinbradshaw.com/personal/lunarrainbow/

Answer 7

In the Caribbean huh...

Need I ask what it was that you may have been smoking at the time?