I wish somebody was here with me to see this. Nobody I've ever known has ever really been the type to get excited about this kind of stuff, so I've always gone out alone to seek this kind of thing... but I think if you just happened to see it, like a surprise, you'd be impressed.
What it is, is ice dust way up where the cirrus clouds form, lit up by moonlight. The winds up there are going from east to west. I can tell because there are clouds with streamers blowing off of them, like smoke blowing off of a smoke stack. It's a full moon, so those ice particles are lit up pretty good. There's a ring around the moon, about 20 degrees wide, and those long streamers of clouds are blowing through that circle, with the full moon right in the middle. They look like contrails. It's a pretty clear sky, but then those long cloud streamers are blowing across it, right dead center through that circle around the moon.
It almost looks unnatural. It's like, there are these long streamers of clouds, shooting across the sky right above me through the glowing circle around the full moon, and only there. It's really fantastic looking. Like I said, it seems unnatural. Uh... incredible. Like a wind blowing straight around and to the end of the world. I've never seen anything like it.
Where it flows over the moon, it looks like pearly fluorescent brush strokes. I wish I could take a picture of it. I've already tried, but my phone camera is the type that sucketh. I'm amazed at how shitty an average camera phone is, compared to my eyes. Compared to my phone, my eyes rule... but compared to my phone, my memory is shit. Ain't that a strange juxtaposition of quality comparisons between natural and manufactured? Carbonaceous and metallic? Organic and non-reactive? Shit and Shinola?
Back to the sky thing. My imagination calls it a moon clock. According to the brightest stars embedded inside it, inside that circle, with the moon at the center, it's 10:30. Those streamer clouds cut chords across it in several places. Isn't that funny? Geometric chords corresponding to musical chords on the circle of fifths. I don't understand enough music theory to know which notes those cloud streamers are striking as they pass over that circle. It would be fun to know, and even better to hear it.
I wish somebody were here with me to see it. Dang it's cold.
