Finding the lunar fog bow

A month ago I had never seen a lunar fog bow, now I have seen three. I got to see my first lunar fog bow on December 17 last year. Last night I got to see two more of these elusive phenomena. We had lots of fog around the city of Östersund and since it was the night of the full moon, I drove around chasing locations where I could see these beautiful bows.

I got two relatively good ones on photo two hours apart. I've included the time and height of the Moon when the photos was taken.

This is something I really love with this type of photography, learning about new phenomena and how and when to see them. After seeing my first lunar fog bow I new how it looked like and what conditions to look for. Last night there where perfect fog bow conditions so it was just a matter of finding the right spot. The moon light needs to be bright so the days around full moon is best. Also the light from the moon can't be to obscured by the fog and you need to have rather dense fog in the opposite direction of the moon. So try to find a location where you're standing just beneath the top of the fog, then you are inside the fog but the moon light is still bright enough to light up the bow.

Also, as you can see by these two photos, a lunar fog bow works exactly as a rainbow, the height of the bow is determined by the height of the light source (Sun/Moon), so if the moon is too high in the sky > ~35° the fog bow won't be visible. A rainbow has a radius of 42° so if the Sun's altitude in the sky is more than 42°, a rainbow can't be visible. The same goes for a fog bow, but it has a much broader radius, 30-45°. So, the lower the altitude of the Sun/moon is, the higher the bow is.

Good luck bow hunting!

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Rare lunar fog bow with Northern lights

Throughout the years I've seen lots of different phenomena in the sky but one that have been on my bucket list for quite some time is the very rare lunar fog bow. I've seen photos of it but I've never seen it in real life, until now. This Saturday turned out to be my lucky night. I hadn't planed to go out at all but after having a look to the north a saw some faint Northern Lights so I decided to head out to see if the activity would increase.

After an hour or so I decided to drive to another location and after parking the car I started walking on the frozen shoreline of lake Storsjön. After walking a couple of hundred of meters I looked up and could clearly see this lunar fog bow. I immediately stopped and pulled out my camera from my backpack to start taking some photos of it. While shooting I felt so excited and happy to finally see this beautiful white fog bow, it was more beautiful than I ever excepted. And as a bonus there were some Northern Lights visible at the same time.

After a while and while the camera was exposing I wanted to text a very good friend of mine that I was seeing my first ever lunar fog bow. While typing I could see my fingers shiver of excitement and I once again realized how much these beautiful phenomena of nature actually means to me.

A fog bog is pretty much the same as a rainbow. It's located in the opposite direction of the Moon and it's height correlates to the height of the Moon in the same way a rainbows height correlates to the height of the Sun. Fog bows are almost white with faint reds on the outside and blues inside. The colors are so washed out because the bow in each color is very broad and the colors overlap.

My first ever lunar fog bow

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