Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Green Flash at Moonrise

NASA ^ | June 05, 2015 | (see photo credit)

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Explanation: Follow a sunset on a clear day against a distant horizon and you might glimpse a green flash just as the Sun disappears, the sunlight briefly refracted over a long sight-line through atmospheric layers. You can spot a green flash at sunrise too. Pinpointing the exact place and time to see the rising Sun peeking above the horizon is a little more difficult though, and it can be harder still to catch a green flash from the fainter rising Moon. But well-planned snapshots did record a green flash at the Full Moon's upper edge on June 2nd, from the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the Canary Island of La Palma. Looking a little south of due east, this long telephoto view finds the rising Moon above mountains and a sea of clouds. In sunlit profile are the mountaintop Teide Observatory telescope domes on the island of Tenerife some 143 kilometers away.

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[Credit and Copyright: Daniel Lopez (El Cielo de Canarias)]

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I didnt know what it was at the time, but I saw the green flash once when flying into Madrid in March, 1978. The plane was over Spain as the sun was rising and all of a sudden everything had an ethereal green glow, just for a moment. It was so startling and beautiful that I’ve remembered it now for almost 40 years.