Moon mirage

The moon like through a glass of water.

"Between sunset and dawn the ground is cooled by radiation into space. The cold earth in turn cools air in contact with it to make a temperature inversion - the stuff of mirages," says Cowley. "Here the 'mock-mirages' made by multiple weak and thin inversion layers have split the rising moon into thin bands and ripples. We know that the air layers had waves in them because the ripples are present even though the moon is well above the horizon. The large black split is cloud."