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Originally Posted by ramsquire
Earlier this morning in South California, where I am, the moon and Sun were in the exact same portion of the sky. In fact the sun was "above" the moon forming a sort of figure 8.
I'm a beginner stargazer and wondered how frequent does this occur, and what is it called when it happens?
Also, without using a sun filter, can I view the moon when this occurs? both objects were very bright, but considering the moon is just reflecting the light is it okay to not use a filter?
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That wasn't the Moon. At that time the Moon was about 25° (or 50 lunar diameters) away from the Sun. Plus it wasn't an annular solar eclipse as shown in
tony873004's photo. There was no solar eclipse yesterday, which can only happen at new Moon, which is September 3rd, and if the paths of the Sun and Moon cross as seen from Earth, which isn't going to happen Saturday, and definitely didn't happen on the 1st. BTW, the next solar eclipse is October 3, 2005, but will be visible only in Europe, Africa, parts of Asia, and a tiny bit of Newfoundland.
Instead you were probably seeing a type of mirage where the layers of air cause an image to appear in addition to the actual object. This is explained
here.