A paraselene, or moon dog, is a halo caused by the refraction of moonlight by hexagonal plate shaped ice crystals in high-atmosphere cirrus clouds. Moon dogs appear to the right and left of the moon approximately 22° away. They are exactly analogous to a a sun dog. Moon dogs are somewhat rarer than sun dogs, because in order to produce moon dogs or other types of halos, the moon must be bright and therefore full or near full.

...I can remember nights back home seeing moondogs in summer, thinking the aspens made the same noise; of what they would sound like, up high in the atmosphere, just touching space- a hundred thousand prisms of ice rubbing against eachother just to create a halo. The nights were warm but we could still see them, there beneath the frozen black and blue-white of the moonlight, the stars fiery, every shadow a black hole...

pen and ink, prismacolor, fireworks and photoshop|stickertag since ripped down|copyright j.hedren.2006 [old work]