May’s full moon occurs, at least for North Americans, on a relatively misunderstood holiday (Cinco de Mayo, which is not the Mexican equivalent to the Fourth of July, but does celebrate an unlikely victory of the Mexican army over the French in 1862). Of perhaps greater interest to astronomically minded folk, though, this month’s full moon occurs not only near perigee (just an hour separates the two events) but near the closest perigee of the year (the Earth-Moon distance being 356,955 km at the time).
A similar perigee situation took place last October, but at new moon, instead of full.
Happy Cinco de Mayo! Maybe some year I’ll learn how to image the moon.
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