Is there an explanation for an image of a big, perfect circle hole in the night sky, w/ the moon in the middle

Question

I don't know if this is a natural occurence, but I saw it, and it was stunning. On the day of December 29, 2007, at around 3:30 AM (GMT+8, Manila), me and my cousins were just finishing up our game of poker at my rest house in the suburbs, when I decided to walk around our yard while smoking. Anyway, I looked up in the night sky, and there was this big, cleared-out, perfect circular "hole", and the moon was right smack dab in the middle! It's like, imagine a bowl, turn it upside down so that the concave faces you, and the moon is right in the middle. It was relatively hazy that night (but there were no rain clouds). The most puzzling thing is that, if it was just a blanket of cloud that was seemingly cleared out by the moon rays, then why, when a high-flying aircraft crossed this "hole" with its tail emitting a smoke trail, the perfect circle hole was not ruined at all? Is there an explanation for this "phenomenon" if I can call it one? Thanks. :)- reypasco818, Manila, Philippines

Answer 1

When light is refracted by water or ice to form a rainbow or circle round the moon, the extra light in the bow has to come from somewhere and it is "borrowed" from further in - so next to a rainbow or within a circle, there is normally a darker than average band. What you saw as a bowl was the bright rim of refracted light then the darker band of reduced light that formed the "sides" of the bowl. The jet plane did not disturb it because it was formed over thousands of feet.

Answer 2

This is a phenomenon called "Lunar Halo". It is a circle with the moon at its center.

Lunar halos form when there are ice crystals floating high in the atmosphere so the moonlight crosses the tiny ice crystals refracting itself and getting the same effect as if they were prisms.

Some Lunar halos are violet, some greenish, some reddish, yellowish and greenish.

The phenomena is produced when the atmosphere has low temperatures and the tiny drops of water get solidified as ice crystal.

Answer 3

It is a moon bow. You are looking at the light from the moon reflected in the atmosphere's suspended water content. It is especially good when you have a full moon.

here is a picture:
http://www.8thfire.net/images/moonbowww.jpg

Answer 4

Ice crystals in the upper troposphere can cause a halo effect around the moon sometimes.

Answer 5

Atmospheric cloud formations as fascinating to look at , here are some of the more unusual ones, There are structures called Hole-Punch clouds, you probably saw a larger one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbutJm-rf64


http://leenks.com/link70511.htm
http://listverse.com/science/10-rare-cloud-formations/
http://www.physorg.com/news73623346.html

Answer 6

Rainbow in the dark are more common then in the day. They are spactackular and you can even see the colors somtimes. The people above had some great links thanks.