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 pretty favorable western elongation; it’s even better to the north. Look how “l0w” Copernicus, with its bright ray system, is; the southern limb of the moon is tilted almost as far away from us as it could get. Had I managed to take a clear image, it might be interesting to see what can be seen way up north, there….
Related Images:
