Night rainbow in Australia

Just after 1am in the middle of the night (returning from photographing the green sea turtles laying their eggs in the dunes) I noticed some geometrical formation in the sky on Fraser Island. I quickly stopped the car and turned off the light. It was then that I realised I am witnessing the rare event....a rainbow at night. Hurry up, get a shot or two....that's all I was thinking. Didn't even have the time to turn around the car for a Toyota promo shot...lol. It all happened so quickly.

The wind picked up and I had to use my umbrella (Mushroom in the foreground) to protect my gear from the rain drops that were already flying horizontally. Not a high quality shot that you see here but hey..consider the circumstances. Have you ever seen a full moonbow at night? I thought this was pretty special and many people probably haven't even seen a moonbow before. You can see the moon is behind me and at the bottom you see the shadow of my umbrella. The moonbow lasted only a few minutes...time enough to quickly setup the tripod, umbrella and compose this shot.

Photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/garry61/

A moonbow (also known as a lunar rainbow or white rainbow), is a rainbow produced by moonlight rather than sunlight. Other than the difference in light source, its formation is exactly the same as for a solar rainbow: It is caused by the refraction of light in many water droplets, such as a rain shower or a waterfall, and is always positioned in the opposite part of the sky from the moon relative to the observer.