Nov 14th, 2016: Supermoon
 

You've probably heard about this, but just a reminder to peek at the moon tonight.
Well by morning it will be last night, I've had a report it looks spectacular on Cape Cod.

http://cellar.org/2016/supermicromoon_paduraru_960.jpg

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just now, from my front porch.

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Just cleared the trees on the hill across the street, but looks more like a Clark Kent Moon than a Supermoon.

Now it's up it doesn't look a lot bigger but definitely brighter.

It always looks tiny in the middle of the sky.

I tell you though, I find it hard to sleep during a full moon while camping. Too damn bright. This moon would be like trying to sleep under a streetlight.

I just went out to look at it again and from our steps, it's brighter than the street light at the end of our drive way

I didn't know it was a supermoon, but I saw it while shopping this evening....
1) it made me want to write a poem
2) I thought "well there's something that will remain constant and beautiful no matter what the orange idiot does, something he can't fuck up, we should all go out and look at the moon more to remind us that it's worth continuing to fight"

then I got worried in case he has a policy for fucking up the moon I just didn't hear about yet....

....I'm sorry, I know this isn't the politics place, but that's just what I thought. It was so beautiful it soothed me. A little.

That was a nice sentiment, monster. Hugzz.

I don't grok the way the moon moves. It's to be its fullest at 8:52 am EST on the 14th. That's 8.5 hours away ish. But it's biggest when it's near the horizon. Which direction will it be rising and setting from my perspective, and at what times? I'd like to try to get a photo like glatt's.

... Glatt, can you post or email me the raw uncropped picture?

Unfortunately it rained all day and night. Fortunately the werewolves weren't able to roam.

tarheel

Sure. It's at home. I'll do it tonight if I remember.

APoD is one of the blogs I read daily :). Tonight's moon is the largest since 1948, according to this morning's post (awesome shot of the space station transiting last month's full moon).

It only LOOKS huge at the horizon because when it's low in the sky we have buildings, trees, mountains, etc to compare visually. It's measurably the same perceptible size at full rise as it is coming up--roughly half a degree across, so it would take 360 full moons to appear as a complete band from horizon to horizon in a straight line.

And that is why I read APoD :D.

I think it was this site that linked me to that in the first place, and I was so entranced I read THEIR ENTIRE ARCHIVE, back to when pixel-by-pixel handcrafted GIF files were a big deal. Took me like a week. The other site I'm pretty sure I found the same way is Earth Science Image of the Day, which is where I learned everything I know about atmosphere/light interactions, refractions, reflections, etc.

Like it or not, y'all reprobates have improved my life and my twitchy little brain. :eek:

I understand light refraction.

I meant I don't know what path it takes in my sky. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, because we revolve around IT. I never learned how to predict where or when the moon would be on the horizon as it rises and sets.... I don't know if it's a regular pattern or what.

Tell the moon to take off Clark's glasses.:cool:

Garrr!
My sort-of local paper (Santa Rosa CA Press Democrat) had an article today stating "astronomers say the moon has not been this close since ...1948."
Above it says "Tonight's moon is the largest since 1948."
The moon, in fact, has been this big and this close every month since 1948 and long before.
Failing to use the term "FULL moon" makes the whole thing meaningless, which it basically is anyway.

friggin cloudy and rained here of course. jerk ass weather.

Maybe it will still look cool tonight.

You wouldn't say that if you were a werewolf. http://cellar.org/2012/bwekk.gif

Sure, it's a dumb name, but if you have even a passing interest in astronomy, you should be happy that the hoi polloi are getting excited by this and going outside and looking up in the sky. The more people take an interest in this, the more likely astronomy will continue to receive funding for research.

Besides, you are wrong.

Look at this Lunar Perigee and Apogee table.

Just by way of example, in July, the closest the moon got to the Earth was 369,658 km. This month, it got as close as 356,511 km. That a difference of 13,147 km or greater than the diameter of the earth.

And that's just the closest it gets. When you look at the farthest it gets, then the difference is more dramatic. The IOTD picture above points out that there was a full moon in 2012 that coincided with apogee, and the moon was 406,364 km away from the earth during that full moon. That's a difference of 49,853 km or about 4 earth diameters farther away when compared to this month's full moon.

All that is hard to comprehend. But the picture at the top of the thread is instantly understandable.

We have another biggie coming up in December, although not quite this big.

No apologies. It had to be done.

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I was quite disappointed by this, I watched it but couldn't see the difference :/

Jane

Evidently you have to see it close to the horizon to appreciate the difference, Jane. I couldn't see it until it was quite high, but it stuck me as considerably brighter.

glatt:
Darned if you are not right.
I thought that the point of the exercise was the coincidence of the full moon and a close perigee.
Turns out there is a much greater variation in lunar perigees than I knew and I am not really too bad an amateur astronomer.
Supermoon indeed!
Red-faced.

Well, I'm glad you brought it up because I'd heard of lots of disappointment a couple years ago when the internet was saying the moon was going to be like 10 times larger or some crazy thing like that and people were annoyed when it looked exactly the same.

But this time, I saw real astronomy sites talking about how it was a big deal, so when you questioned it, I looked it up. I was glad to have been prompted to look it up. It's pretty cool.

The big moon in Philly...
http://cellar.org/2016/phillymoon.jpg

It was cloudy on the 14th. When was that taken?

Who's a supermooch?

Most everyone!

Don't know but would guess the 13th moonrise.