Y’all know I love keeping tract of celestial events 🙂  Thankfully the sky was almost clear… Even better, atmospheric ice crystals created a huge ring around the moon as if to celebrate the closeness of these two heavenly bodies.

I sketched the 6:45 pm and 10:30 pm views plein air, but in a different sketch book, then added them later to this journal page.  The painting was done inside after running out, taking a peek, and then creating the sketch from memory.

One thing I’m very careful to do is make sure I have the slant of the gibbous moon correct. I imagine a clock face to judge the angle. In this case, at 6:45 pm it was 11 and 5 o’clock, at 8 pm – 11:30 and 5:30.  It was a big surprise that the moon had turned so much by 10:30.  This was also when Jupiter was at its closest point to the moon.

If you had a clear sky for viewing, did you have a ring around the moon, too?