Ángel R. López Sánchez was observing at the Australia Telescope Compact Array in 2008. He describes how this photo came about: “After a long day I walked from the control building to the lodge and saw a beautiful moon halo. I ran to my room and grabbed my camera (CANON EOS 400D, the digital camera I got as a gift from my IAC colleagues when completed my PhD) and tripod and looked for a nice position with one of the ATCA antennae (CA03 in this case). The halo didn’t fit within a single exposure, so I took several images and merged them in a single final exposure.” Lunar halos are have a radius of approximately 22 degrees halos (which is why they don’t fit in a single exposure!). They are created when the moonlight is refracted by ice crystals in thin cirrus clouds. Similar “22-degree halos” can be seen around the sun when conditions are right.
![](https://www.atnf.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/ATCA-12052022.jpg)