Provenance of the cross sign of 806 in the <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i>: a possible lunar halo over continental Europe?

Uchikawa, Yuta; Cowley, Les; Hayakawa, Hisashi; Willis, David M.; Stephenson, F. Richard

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-11-81-2020

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-11-81-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-11-81-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

20 Apr 2020

| 20 Apr 2020

Provenance of the cross sign of 806 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a possible lunar halo over continental Europe?

Yuta Uchikawa, Les Cowley, Hisashi Hayakawa, David M. Willis, and F. Richard Stephenson

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Short summary

A graphical record of a cruciform appearance in the night sky and possible lunar-halo display of 806 CE in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is philologically traced back to mid-ninth-century continental manuscripts, and a probable observational site is identified as around Sens in France. Possible lunar halos are examined by numerical ray tracing. Cruciform halos are shown to be faint and rare and thus notable. Halos from physically credible cloud ice crystals reproduce the manuscript renditions.