Posts from ‘moon’
Zoom into Tycho
The moon will be at perigee (the closest point in the moon’s orbit around earth each month) at precisely 11:37UT today, the closest perigee in 2009, orbiting roughly about 357, 298 kilometers from earth°. It will also be a full moon tonight (January 11th, 03:27UT), but that happens about 16 hours later. For those in the bay area (40° lat), the moon rises at 16:02, is completely full at 19:27, and then sets at 06:51 on Sunday morning.
That will make the moon appear almost 14% larger as it looms beautifully in the evening sky. It will also be a whopping 30% brighter, so if your looking through a telescope, use a filter to prevent eye fatigue. I’ll try and post some pics or video later this evening.
Plus, don’t forget venus which has been twinkling brightly in the west in the early evening; tonight at a distance of .71AU.
And if you ever want to know what’s in the sky, at anytime or anywhere on earth, check out the planetarium by paul neave.
°each month the shamptonian institute calculates this figure by multiplying the mean radius of the earth (6,371.0 km) multiplied by the true distance (as listed in the The Astronomical Almanac for the year 2009).
For those of you in the world who may have caught tonight’s crescent moon: here’s a brief, janky glimpse from a basic flipcam I hand held through a 150mm (6 inch) reflector with a 35mm eyepiece. The battery ran out while it was drifting below the horizon.
Nasa CoLab recently hosted the twelfth Luna Philosophie salon, with guest Brian Day, Educational Technology Technical Lead at NASA Ames Research Center, who gave a great mission briefing on the coming LRO/LCROSS mission to search for water and landing sites for an antarctic station on the moon. NASA CoLab was set up to help build direct and open collaborations between the public, including mission briefings, data collaboration, great educational materials for kids and adults, and a host of other ways to interact, get involved, and get tremendous amounts of information on NASA missions. NASA has truly embraced the open-source culture and it’s great to see NASA CoLab working so well.
About LRO/LCROSS:
In 2009, NASA will return to the Moon with the combined launch of two robotic probes, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The two satellites will be launched together aboard an Atlas V rocket and these robotic missions are precursors to the planned establishment of a human outpost on the Moon. The LCROSS mission will use the Centaur upper stage of the launch vehicle as a kinetic impactor in the search for possible deposits of water ice that might occur in permanently-shadowed craters near the lunar pole. LRO will orbit the lunar poles for up to five years. Just after launch from the Kennedy Space Center, LRO will separate from LCROSS.
Another cool thing about Luna Philosophie (besides the cute host and the rest of the fun nerds like me who show up), is that it’s always held on (or close to) the full moon.
