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By Ben, on August 24th, 2010
The moon goes by many different names. Here are the moon names for August according to MoonPhase, one of my favorite lunar apps for my iPod (and iPad, but I’m consulting the iPod version because Someone Who Shall Remain Nameless drained the battery last night and didn’t plug it in so it’s recharging from the wall charger):
August (Calendar Month)
Dog Days (in Colonial American parlance)
Sturgeon (Algonquin, which was the basis for the Farmers’ Almanac moon names)
Grain (English)
Dispute (Celtic)
Wyrt (Medieval wiccan)
Lightning (Neo pagan).
Whatever you call it, it happens today at 1:05 p.m. EDT. And as you may recall from previous full moon [...]
By Ben, on July 25th, 2010
It’s been said so often, and not just by those who dabble in astronomy, but perhaps especially often among those who do: patience is a virtue. After waiting up two hours past my normal bedtime for the summer moon to come out from behind the clouds, she finally did:
Last night’s insurance photo, all warm and fuzzy as it is, really isn’t in the same league. Part of the issue, I’m convinced, is that if I’ve already been asleep, I have a much harder time coaxing focus into my eyes. And on a difficult subject like the full moon through a [...]
By Ben, on July 25th, 2010
This morning at 2 a.m. it was still over 80 degrees outside, and, it being 2 a.m. and all, I found it hard to focus. Not just mentally. Literally. See the picture below if you doubt me.
Summer Moon, 25 July, 2010, 2:10 a.m. EDT.
What we have here is a fuzzy shot of the Summer Moon, taken on a warm and sleepless night here in south Florida. I only took the shot because I couldn’t get back to sleep after giving Eric his middle-night bottle (he’s sick. again. and needs his comfort food), for fear that tonight’s Summer Moon (9:35 [...]
By Ben, on June 28th, 2010
Friday night/Saturday morning, I decided to put my 2 a.m. wakeup call* to good use and get a shot of the moon at close to full. Backyard astronomy at its best!
The house is nice and cool these days, thanks to the a/c man and my suddenly light bank account, and the contrast between the cool and dry indoors and the hot and muggy out of doors was intense, even at 2:25 a.m. I thought I’d entered a sauna just by opening the door to the Florida room! There was a deep mist in the air, but not too dense; a [...]
By Ben, on June 27th, 2010
Here at long last is last month’s shot of the near full moon. Time, weather, and energy permitting, I’m still committed to posting at least one shot of each month’s full moon in 2010.
Depending on your browser, you can either click on the image, or mouse over the area to the right of the image, in order to see the caption/description. (In my browser, Safari for Mac, clicking on the image brings up a new window with a “full size” version. Full size in quotes, because I reduced it to 1200 pixels wide just to make it easy to upload.) [...]
By Ben, on April 6th, 2010
Jet lag from a recent trip to India combined with a cloudy night to make the blurry shot below the best one I could get of the full moon closest to the March equinox. Oh, well. Here, for the record, is the full moon from March 30, 2010, at 2:52 a.m.:
now, to compare it to December, January and February’s full moons, so we can see any libration effects:
Ignoring my poor alignment skills, you can see that Mare Crisium in March is much farther from the visible limb of the moon than it was in December. This means that it’s a [...]
By Ben, on March 1st, 2010
No, I’m not taking up drinking under the full moon (although that sounds like a nice idea!). I’ve got a new backyard astronomy project. Fresh off my foolhardy attempt to capture every day’s stage of the Winter moon (and having missed only two!), I’ve decided that now I’ll shoot for all the full moons of 2010, with the first full moon from December 2009 thrown in for good measure.
[Show as slideshow]
Above are the first three, the Blue Moon from 2009, and the Winter Moon and the Trapper’s Moon. [...]
By Ben, on February 23rd, 2010
The waxing gibbous moon is at zenith (that is, directly overhead) in the early evening, so it’s a pretty conspicuous sight in the evening sky. Even on a rainy night here in south Florida, there are sometimes enough moments of clear skies to catch a glimpse or two:
I’ve been studying up on some of the techniques of nature photography in the blogs I’ve discovered on Nature Blog Network; one or two of them have to do with how to compose good landscapes with the moon.
I hope to be able to use some of the tips I’m learning to improve my [...]
By Ben, on February 19th, 2010
Here are two images of the Day Three moon, one from Wednesday night, and one from a month ago. Apart from the technical differences of exposure, and a slight misalignment (the “horns” of the moon aren’t exactly parallel, but that’s just an artifact of my inability to rotate them to the exact same angle, not a difference in the moon itself), what differences do you see? What’s responsible for them?
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January 18, 2010, 6:48 p.m. EST
February 17, 2010, 7:34 p.m. EST
Tentative answers after the “read [...]
By Ben, on February 12th, 2010
As expected, I was unable to get a shot of this morning’s waning crescent moon. The clouds from the approaching cold front were just too thick.
Try to see the moon through this!
So I’ll look forward to another opportunity to image the days I missed this go-round: 16 and 28. Not bad for my first attempt!
The Great Backyard Bird Count starts today, and runs through Monday, so I’ll be splitting time between the boy and the boids this weekend. Enjoy!
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