ABSTRACT
THE moon is sometimes observed with haloes of this kind when it lies in opposition to the sun; in winter conditions these declare much the same effects with regard to snow, cold, storms, and frost as they usually presage in summer by way of rains, hail, and spells of heat. 1 The most likely reason, according to Aristotle, is that the moon naturally has no power at all to initiate action on inferior bodies except by reciprocating and receiving light from the sun, which turns it, so to speak, into another sun. 1 Hence it is governed by the sun’s brightness, as are all the other stars (according to Pliny’s view in Bk II, Ch. 9), and it shines by a light which has been totally borrowed, such a light as we see shimmering in its reflections on water. Therefore it is only with a rather gentle and insufficient power that the moon causes moisture to evaporate, and even increases it, whereas the beams of the sun dry it up. As a consequence we perceive that the moon’s light varies, because it is full only when opposite the sun, and on the remaining days reveals merely as much light to the earth as it receives from the sun, etc. 2 Hence Pliny also relates, in the thirty-second chapter of the same book, that triple moons have been seen, which most people are in the habit of calling nocturnal suns. 3 4 So the sun suns holds the basis of all colours in itself. When the moon is in conjunction with the sun, the whole half of the moon that is presented to us will be dark, because it lies between the earth and the sun. And when the moon goes before the sun towards the east it will be obscured on its eastern side and its light will be increased towards the west. The farther therefore it travels from the sun the more light appears to us in its body, according to its movement, until it is in opposition to the sun; and then the whole half exposed to us will be bright, since the earth then will lie between the sun and the moon.
Effects of haloes
Weakness of the moon
Moon borrows light from the sun
Three moons – nocturnal suns
Varying of the moon’s light
