Believe it or not, I went out to paint a picture of the waxing gibbous moon tonight but instead I saw the most unusual thing in the sky. The moon was partially covered by a rare comet called Simpson's 56223 which only orbits earth once every 310 years. The Simpson's comet is unique in that its surrounded in an elaborate halo of sprinklets... that's the technical word for small debris that orbits a comet, kind of like sprinkles on a donut. I thought this painting would make an excellent addition into my Curio Folio, a collection of oddities that no person has ever seen before. I was lucky enough to be standing there at the exact moment that the Simpson's comet and its halo of sprinklets passed between the moon and the earth, creating the fantastic eclipse-effect you see in the highly accurate painting. I also took a picture with my smartphone camera but it turns out that the combination of comet aura and partially eclipsed moonlight can not be photographed with conventional camera technology. So this painting is perhaps the only image of what many astronomers call the D'Oh Moon, at least for another 310 years.
Curio Folio: D'Oh Moon, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2025
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