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The Moon Shield 60 is one of the current breed of high powered rear lights that comes with a range of modes that range from visible to bright to downright antisocial. It's guaranteed to get you noticed though.
The '60' part of the name comes from the lumens the Shield is claimed to put out at its highest output, the Over Drive setting. It's bright, probably too bright to have it pointing straight back at following drivers, so Moon have included an adjustable bracket that allows you to angle it slightly at the road surface. Not only is it bright enough then to still provide plenty of visibility you also bathe the ground in a red glow which makes you look bigger on the road than you actually are, reducing the number of close passes.
That's a bit of driver behaviour modification I first noticed using the mega powered Hope District (110 lumen) last winter and it works with the Moon too.
At its heart is a single CREE XP-E red LED paired with a 3.7V 700mAh lithium polymer battery which will give you around a 2.5 hour burn time on that Over Drive mode. That's not quite as good as the Exposure TraceR which has the same capacity battery but runs for 3 hours at 75 lumen, but it's impressive nonetheless. A battery indicator lets you know how much juice you've got left.
You get a Standard and High mode too (output/burn times are below) before you reach the two flashing modes, a straight forward Flashing and the Strobe setting. This is the antisocial one. You'll stand out but just looking at it gave me a headache within seconds so it's probably a bit unfair to inflict on others.
The majority of the light is put out as a spot with an angle of 33° according to Moon's website with it fading off to a 58° beam angle. The red and clear lens does allow for full 180° visibility allowing you to be seen from the side, important for junctions.
The bracket's not the most sturdy of things and while I haven't had any issues it does allow quite a bit of bounce with the light in situ. It's not a major concern being at the rear but it's something we'll keep an eye on over the long term. You can get a saddle rail mount as an optional extra which would be useful if you have an aero seatpost.
The ability to deal with the wet is a big thing with rear lights. Having it conk out without you realising while on a damp night ride isn't ideal. The Shield passes both road and bathroom shower testing with ease providing the rubber USB cover is tightly closed, if any rain water gets in here the light is out within seconds and will then continue to play up until it's fully dried out so you must make sure it's tightly closed.
After the above soaking it started working again after a few hours in the airing cupboard but two days later it died completely and on taking it apart it was still full of water. Once dried out completely it's worked faultlessly ever since.
Overall the Moon is an impressive package in terms of light output, build quality and price, £39.99 is a tenner cheaper than the slightly brighter TraceR. The brightness gives plenty of confidence that you'll be visible even on the lower levels and the brightest mode is a bonus in thick fog even in daylight.
Very bright rear light for year-round all conditions use, though the Strobe mode could be annoying