Moonlight

Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon's surface where the Sun's light strikes.Moonlight shines on the Very Large Telescope.Moonlight illuminates a lake and surroundings.During a lunar eclipse, the Moon is colored red by indirect sunlight, which Earth's atmosphere has scattered and refracted.Earthlight (indirect sunlight reflected from Earth) illuminates the dim side of the Moon, while direct sunlight the bright side.With manual exposure settings, photographs taken in moonlight do not appear much different from those taken in daylight.Seaport by Moonlight (1771) by Claude Joseph VernetDovedale by Moonlight (1784) by Joseph Wright of DerbyA Philosopher in a Moonlit Churchyard (1790) by Philip James de LoutherbourgThe Port of Boulogne by Moonlight (1869) by Édouard ManetThe Starry Night (1889) by Vincent van GoghHalny (1895) by Stanisław Witkiewicz Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon's surface where the Sun's light strikes. The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on its phase, but even the full Moon typically provides only about 0.05–0.1 lux illumination. When the full Moon is at perigee and 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 1⁄380,000 that of the Sun. The color of moonlight, particularly around full Moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to most artificial light sources due to the Purkinje effect. Moonlight is not actually tinted blue, and although moonlight is often referred to as 'silvery', it has no inherent silvery quality. The Moon's albedo is 0.136, meaning only 13.6% of incident sunlight is reflected from the lunar surface. Moonlight generally hampers astronomical viewing, so astronomers usually avoid observing sessions around full Moon. It takes approximately 1.26 seconds for moonlight to reach Earth's surface. 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. 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. In 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.