Harvest Moon | Shine On Us

A lot of fuss was been made of the Harvest Moon on Friday the 13th. Our Chinese friends noted its significance for them and their love of Moon Cakes. On our way home last night from a dinner party with our friends, we enjoyed views of the full moon high in the southeast sky.

Awake before sunrise on the 14th, I looked for the Moon before it set in the west and was rewarded for my effort with these views. The most-zoomed was at 6:34 am.

A few minutes later sunrise approached. I turned to the east and was rewarded with this golden sky. That radio tower is 13 miles away. Good luck and blessings for all. Peace.

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Moon Venus Mercury Aligned | 18 Mar 2018

The young new-moon emerged from the glare of the Sun last weekend. It is moving toward a second full-moon of the month on 31 March. Two full-moons also appeared in January. None in February. Also present in the early evening sky were Venus and Mercury (arrow). Enlarge the image to see Mercury.

Moon – Venus – Mercury | 7:41 pm CDT

About 1% of the Moon was illuminated at that time. It was a cooperative subject for this shot.

Moon | 7:42 pm CDT

Two hours later that evening our phone dinged with a text message from our son on the west coast. He attached this photo taken from his deck. It was fun to see the alignment again. Note that the Moon was a little higher relative to Venus in his photo.

Enlarge for more detail.

SuperMoon | 3 Dec 2017

There it was shining into the bedroom windows low in the western sky. By the time it reached the full SuperMoon phase at 9:46 am CST, it would be well below the horizon. I give you the almost SuperMoon just before setting. Sorry about the trees being in the way.

Click to embiggen

Moon | Venus | Can You Tell Which?

A quiz for you…

How I See It

One of these images is of the Moon on 2 Feb 2017. The other image is of Venus on 3 Feb. Can you tell which is which? What is your reasoning?

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Supermoon v.2.0 | Another One?

In case you missed it last month…

How I See It

Maybe you were one of the fortunate ones last month to see the July Supermoon. My blog post explained quite a bit about it. There were news stories, images, and streaming webcams covering it. It was hyped as a big deal. For some of us, it was.

Well, here we go again. There is another even bigger Supermoon this month on August 10. It will be the biggest perigee full-moon of 2014.

Mark your calendar. Watch for it in an evening sky near you.

Science @ NASA

PS: There is yet another coming in September. You will have another chance if your skies are cloudy.

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Supermoon | Just An Illusion?

How I See It

It’s time again for the Supermoon. This post is for those who will have clear skies on the evening of July 11 or 12 and want to see the Moon closer and bigger than normal. Full moon is actually at about sunrise on July 12 when it is setting in the west for those of us in the U.S. Most people don’t notice it setting full. The view of it at evening moonrise, before or after full, will appear almost exactly as it does at moonset the morning of full.

First, a little sciency stuff. This won’t hurt a bit.

• The Moon takes about a month to orbit Earth.
• The Moon’s orbit is not a circle around Earth. It is a bit oval-shaped.
• During the closest part of the orbit it is called Perigee.
• During the farthest part of the orbit it is called Apogee.
• Closer things look bigger and farther things look smaller.
• The…

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Venus … Meet Mr. Moon

by Jim and Melanie

The view to our west on October 7 about 45 min after sundown was beautiful. The new Moon and Venus were aligned perfectly. Here is a little more zoomed view of the Moon. Isn’t the subtle Earthshine nice?

One thing is for sure. The closure of the government offices is not going to keep us from seeing views like these. That is a good thing.

Moon Motions | Phases | Librations

Cosmic Distance Ladder – Part 1

How I See It

(Parts part 2, part 3, and part 4.)

Many great articles and news stories are written on the subjects of Astronomy and Cosmology. They reveal the wonders and beauty of the universe stretching out to enormous distances in all directions we look.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of those stories is the sense of scale being described within them. This blog series is meant for readers who love these offerings, but have little or no formal background study in astronomy. Yet, they want to know more about it.

This Cosmic Distance Ladder series will take you a few rungs at a time over the next posts. This is the first of 4 parts of the series Cosmic Distance Ladder. Here are links to part 2, part 3, and part 4. Each rung of the ladder describes the methods used by astronomers to measure…

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