That big pink thing in the sky

I was driving home this morning and I saw a big pink roundish thing low in the Western sky. It looked like a cloud touched by sunlight, but while broken up somewhat it was still clearly round.

What the hell is that?, I thought. It looked like some sort of big, pink counter-image of the sun, which had not yet risen. I racked my brain to think of an example of the rising sun somehow forming an image in the sky opposite itself before it had actually gotten above the horizon, and I came up blank. That would be some pretty damned peculiar optical geometry, to be sure.

Then I remembered that as my friends and I left the Mexican restaurant where we met for dinner Wednesday night, we were greeted by a Full (or nearly-Full) Moon. One friend exclaimed how great the Full Moon would look through a telescope, and I immediately rained on her parade by pointing out that the Full Moon shows much less interesting detail than any of the partial phases, which always have lots of shadows to highlight mountains and craters, and the image of the Full Moon is dazzlingly, overwhelmingly bright through a telescope (unless viewed through a filter.) Been there, done that.

I realized that what I was seeing was just the Full (or slightly past Full) Moon setting in the West as the Sun rose in the East, distorted by layers of clouds and fog hanging close to the horizon. I was able to follow its descent for a few minutes, but then the highway shifted direction for a bit and the Moon moved off to my right. When I found myself pointing West again the Moon was nowhere to be seen.

Tomorrow the Moon will be a little higher in the sky at sunrise, and a little less full. I wonder if I will have an easier time spotting it on my drive home?