Halo Moon
Just wanted to post this up, as it’s one of the reasons we’re doing what we’re doing…
I doubt we would have been able to see this with all the light pollution from our previous place.
We walked out, looked up and saw that the moon had a strange halo effect going on. I managed to capture the halo, but couldn’t manage to get the moon crisp at the same time. My full-sized tri-pod would have done the job better, but I think it’s in storage. :S
Anyway… seeing things like this is why we’re here. I’d love to know why it looks like this tonight, but I’m satisfied just being able to see it. 
Themocracy
I believe the halo effect is from ice crystals. You wouldn’t have been able to see that from here!
Err… it’s Florida and it was 60 degrees last night.
Julie is correct. A bit of Googlage confirms that a moon halo is due to ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. It may have been 60 degrees on the ground, but it was apparently cold enough in the upper atmosphere for ice crystals to form. It’s explained here:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/moonhalo.html
That link also includes a moon halo picture that is shockingly similar to the one you posted. If I didn’t know better, I would swear they were taken on the same night with the same camera by the same person.
Karl, thank you for that link.
About a half hour later we went outside to check the status of the “halo” to see if it had dimmed or gotten brighter. It was gone! In its place were long curly clouds “running” across the moon. Where there were breaks in the clouds, the moon shone like a bright light bulb. We stood there in amazement for a few minutes and thankful we got to see that too.
I should have known better than to doubt Julie. :S