An interesting question for you all:

A co-worker of mine, out on the weekend at a campsite, looked up at the moon and noticed a strange red circle in the sky near the moon. He grabbed his camera and took several pictures and had his wife and kids verify that he was not seeing things.

http://www.totedata.com/mars.jpg

The quality of the picture is not the best, but it demonstrates what he saw (moon is on the left, red globe on the right). The moon was fairly large, near the horizon, and it was his claim that "that must be Mars!". I assured him that it was not (and could not be, for several reasons), and must have been some consequence of a lens-type effect of the atmosphere casting a shadow of a red moon some distance to the right of where it actually was.

Does anyone have an explanation for how this would occur (or has even seen it before)? Looking at the picture, I am very certain that this is a copy of the moon somehow reflected off the atmosphere (dust or something?). If anyone has a theory or has seen this before, I'd love to hear it.

I'm sure we've discussed double images of the sun, caused when the atmosphere splits the light and provides for two different paths, and two apparent suns.

I think we discussed double-moons, too. Ah, here's one thread:

help the ignorant English major--a DOUBLE crescent moon?

And, welcome.

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You know, I swear I have seen that picture before, I just wish I could place it.

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Enter the World of Athran

Nice novel called RED MOON out there as well.

I don't think the photo makes a good case for what was reportedly seen. Doesn't the moon usually show up white or grey, in photos? Maybe it is my browser but the image presented looks more like that earth and moon image taken by MRO.

Ok here is the image I was thinking of and they are not the same.

I am a little sceptical about this photo. The red image looks like a true image of the Moon, either during an eclipse or reddened by being very near the horizon. The familiar pattern of maria can be seen quite clearly; I suspect this is a direct image of the Moon and not a mirage. Incidentally the last full moon (August's) appeared very red to me on several occasions; I watched it rise for several days running and it was quite spectacular.

However the image on the left (which is supposedly the true image of the Moon) is less well defined, and shows none of the familiar features; in fact it looks like an 'orb'. caused by the illumination of a dust particle neaby by the camera's flash.

I suspect that this is photo of a red moon taken with a flash, and the 'orb' image has happened by chance; the photographer would not have seen the orb when the picture was taken.
The story about a red moon next to the normal moon might be a post hoc explanation for the photo of some sort.
For more about orbs see here
http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Orbs

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