♥ q: what do you call a rainbow that appears only at night?

answer: a moonbow!

haha.

no, really.

did anyone else know that there is such a thing as a moonbow?

and even more fascinatingly- that there was a sighting of this

very rare astronomical phenomenon in hawaii just last week?

above is a recent picture captured by award winning photographer

wally pacholka, at the edge of a crater on the island of maui.

appearing as only a few white streaks to the naked eye,

a true moonbow can only be seen with the aid of

long exposure photography.

while rainbows are caused when sun light passes through water droplets

in the air to create thick bands of color, a moon bow occurs in the same fashion,

but with the light from the moon, that is reflected from the sun, shining down

through the rain showers. (if that makes any sense at all!)

a few things must come into play for a moonbow to appear:

it must be raining opposite of the direction of the moon.

the moon must be nearly full.

the moon cannot be higher than 42 degrees in the sky.

it must be dark.

and you must be crazy enough to stand in the darkness with your

camera poised on a tripod, with its lens open for hours at a time

attempting to capture a glimpse of the ever mysterious night time rainbow!