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{{short description|Light that reaches Earth from the Moon}}{{other uses|Moonlight (disambiguation)}}File:Holma Boat Club by the light of the moon.jpg|thumb|250px|Moonlight illuminates a boat club in Holma, Sweden.]]Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon’s surface where the Sun’s light strikes.JOURNAL, G. J., Toomer, G. J. Toomer, Review: Ibn al-Haythams Weg ur Physik by Matthias Schramm, Isis (journal), Isis, 55, 4, December 1964, 463–465 [463–4], 10.1086/349914,

History

The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras was aware that ”the sun provides the moon with its brightness”.Fragment in Plutarch De facie in orbe lunae, 929b, as quoted in “The Riverside Dictionary of Biography” (2005), p. 23

Illumination

The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on the lunar phase, but even the full moon typically provides only about 0.05–0.1 lux illumination.JOURNAL, Kyba, Christopher C M, Mohar, Andrej, Posch, Thomas, How bright is moonlight?, Astronomy & Geophysics, 1 February 2017, 58, 1, 1.31–32, 10.1093/astrogeo/atx025,academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/58/1/1.31/2938119/How-bright-is-moonlight-Moonlight, 14 February 2017, When a full Moon around perigee (a “supermoon“) is viewed around upper culmination from the tropics, the illuminance can reach up to 0.32 lux. From Earth, the apparent magnitude of the full Moon is only about {{fract|1|380,000}} that of the Sun.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}The color of moonlight, particularly around full moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to other, brighter light sources due to the Purkinje effect. The blue or silver appearance of the light is an illusion. The Moon’s bond albedo averages 0.136,JOURNAL, 10.1364/AO.47.004981, Celestial body irradiance determination from an underfilled satellite radiometer: application to albedo and thermal emission measurements of the Moon using CERES, 2008, Matthews, Grant, Applied Optics, 47, 4981–93, 18806861, 27, 2008ApOpt..47.4981M, Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System, meaning only 13.6% of incident sunlight is reflected from the lunar surface. Moonlight takes approximately 1.26 seconds to reach Earth’s surface. Scattered in Earth’s atmosphere, moonlight generally increases the brightness of the night sky, reducing contrast between dimmer stars and the background. For this reason, many astronomers usually avoid observing sessions around a full moon.

Gallery

File:ISS-44 Moon - Goodnight Earth.jpg|Moonlight onto Earth’s cloud cover from spaceFile:Sunrise over the VLT.jpg|Moonlight shines on the Very Large Telescope.File:Tonsvatnet, tÃ¥ke og mÃ¥ne.JPG|Moonlight illuminates a lake and surroundings.File:Giftedtypist - red moon (by).jpg|During a lunar eclipse, the Moon is colored red by indirect sunlight, which Earth’s atmosphere has scattered and refracted.File:Earthshine Moon.jpg|Earthlight (indirect sunlight reflected from Earth) illuminates the dim side of the Moon, while direct sunlight the bright side.File:High ISO with long exposure.jpg|With manual exposure settings, photographs taken in moonlight do not appear much different from those taken in daylight.

Folklore

In folklore, moonlight sometimes has a harmful influence. For example, sleeping in the light of a full Moon on certain nights was said to transform a person into a werewolf. The light of the Moon was thought to worsen the symptoms of lunatics, and to sleep in moonlight could make one blind, or mad.A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford University Press, 2000 Nyctalopia (night blindness caused by a lack of vitamin A) was thought to be caused by sleeping in moonlight in the tropics.“Moon blindness” is a name for equine recurrent uveitis. Moonlight is no longer thought of as the cause.In the 16th century, moonmilk, a soft white limestone precipitate found in caves, was thought to be caused by the rays of the Moon.BOOK, Gessner, Conrad, Conrad Gessner, Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati, Description of Mount Fractus, or Mount Pilatus, 1555, la, 54,gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k93851n/f59, March 12, 2016,

Art

File:Joseph Vernet - Night - Seaport by Moonlight - WGA24731.jpg|Seaport by Moonlight (1771) by Claude Joseph VernetImage:Joseph Wright of Derby - Dovedale by Moonlight - Google Art Project.jpg|Dovedale by Moonlight (1784) by Joseph Wright of DerbyFile:Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg - A Philosopher in a Moonlit Churchyard.jpg|A Philosopher in a Moonlit Churchyard (1790) by Philip James de LoutherbourgFile:Ed. Manet. Clair de lune sur le port de Boulogne.jpg|The Port of Boulogne by Moonlight (1869) by Édouard ManetFile:Van Gogh - Starry Night - Google Art Project.jpg|The Starry Night (1889) by Vincent van GoghFile:Stanisław_Witkiewicz_-_Wiatr_halny_1895.jpg|Halny (1895) by Stanisław WitkiewiczIn 2008 Katie Paterson produced an artwork titled Light bulb to Simulate Moonlight. It consists of 289 lightbulbs coated to produce a similar spectrum to the light of the full Moon.WEB,www.guggenheim.org/artwork/28089, Katie Paterson Light bulb to Simulate Moonlight, guggenheim.org, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 29 January 2019,

See also

• Airglow
• Daylight
• Diffuse reflection
• Earthlight (astronomy)
• Lunar effect
• Scotobiology
• Starlight
• Night in paintings (Western art)
• Night in paintings (Eastern art)

References

{{reflist}}

External links

{{wiktionary|moonlight}}{{commons category}}

• Phases of the Moon {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709100302aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html |date=2011-07-09 }} at USNO
• science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/28sep_strangemoonlight/" title="web.archive.org/web/20101004003005science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/28sep_strangemoonlight/">Strange Moonlight at Science@NASA
• home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/moonlight_gallery/technique/moonbright.htm" title="web.archive.org/web/20130202083251home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/moonlight_gallery/technique/moonbright.htm">Moonlight Brightness at home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/index.html" title="web.archive.org/web/20100311001241home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/index.html">LunarLight Photography

{{The Moon|state=expanded}}{{Parts of a day}}