Isn’t that a whole lot easier to say than “Supermoon”? But seriously, if you want to know what’s happening with this Sunday morning’s full moon, the best article I’ve seen in a while is over at Sky and Telescope’s website.
The moon will appear about 7% larger than the average full moon, because it’s going to be—get this—7% closer to us. 357 061 km, instead of the “average” 384 402 km.
It will appear more than 7% brighter, though, because brightness varies with the square of the distance. So, (384,4022 − 357,0612) / 384,4022 × 100 = 13% brighter.
If the average lunar brightness at full moon is −12.74 magnitudes, then this Sunday’s moon should be about −12.9.
That’s not a whole lot to write home about.
If you want to do the math, go here.
Another point to consider is that it’s the start of summer, so we’re near aphelion, when the earth is as far from the sun as it can get (the actual date of aphelion this year is July 5). That means that the light available for this June’s perigee full moon to reflect back to Earth is slightly reduced from what it could be.
On the other hand, when a supermoon (full moon at perigee) and perihelion (Earth at closest point to Sun) coincide, that’s going to be one bright full moon! (Sort of. Actually, even a 30% difference in brightness is actually not all that noticeable to most people. Our eyes scale so quickly that such a relative difference is nearly imperceptible.) If you’re curious, the next time these three events (full moon, perigee, perihelion) coincide will be January 1, 2018. That year the closest perigee full moon will occur on January 1, and Earth’s perihelion occurs only two days later, on January 3, at 1 a.m.! So mark your calendar!
In the meantime, I’ll stay up late Saturday night with my camera, hoping for clear-ish skies to restart my full moon project, which got waylaid last October.
Here’s where it left off:
Related Images:
