It
was captured late on Wednesday above Alston by BBC Weather Watcher Andrew
Hewison, who posts as Kimspics. BBC weather presenter Simon King described it
as a "rare and amazing colourful moonbow". He said normally moonbows
are much fainter and seen as white but the extra brightness of Wednesday's moon
meant colours could be seen.
The
super worm moon coincided with the spring equinox, the midway point between
mid-winter and mid-summer. During a full moon, Mr King said, there can be
enough light to produce a moonbow.
"Normally these are much fainter and you may only see them as white as all the colours are weaker and scattered away before they reach your eye," he said. "With last night's full moon also being a supermoon it was much brighter than a normal full moon. This extra brightness generated enough light shining into the water droplets that the colours of the rainbow were reflected right back to the weather watcher."
'Pleased'
Mr
Hewison said he spotted the phenomenon just after 22:00 GMT as he took his dog
for a walk. He said:
"At first I tried to take a picture with my phone, but I couldn't make it out so I got my digital camera and put it on the night setting. I was a bit rushed for time as it was only there for four or five minutes."
Mr
Hewison said he had always wanted to take a photo of the Northern Lights but
was pleased he had seen something so rare.
"It's putting Alston on the map for something different," he said.
Another moonbow was
photographed by Ben Gwynne above Skipton, North Yorkshire, in
October 2016 at the same time as a Hunter's Moon or blood moon.
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