Posts Tagged ‘Moon’
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
We’ve had some really good sunny weather for the past few weeks, which has given us some lovely clear skies. That means that I’ve been able to take photos of the Moon on lots of consecutive days!
My ambition is to get a shot of it on every day of it’s visible phases, and then to make a mosaic of them. I must be nearly there now! I must organise and collate the shots and see which days I’m missing.
Even though I’ve only got a fairly small point and shoot, and the quality of my photos aren’t as good or detailed as someone with better equipment, I’m really pleased with my results. The camera is small enough to carry everywhere with me, which I need to do because the skies can change so quickly.
I’ve had the situation where I saw the Moon in a lovely clear sky when I came out of work, but when I arrived home 10 minutes later it had clouded over, and stayed like that for the rest of the evening! Now that I have my camera with me, I stop and take some shots as soon as I see it.
Tags: craters, gibbous, June, Moon, photo, photography, waxing
Posted in Moon, night sky, photography | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
As anyone who follows my blog or my Flickr photostream will know, one of the things I love to take photos of is the Moon. I love studying it, and looking at it through binoculars, but that’s fleeting. If I take a photo of it, I’ve got a record I can go back to.
My ambition is to take a shot of the Moon on each day of it’s visible phases, and then make a mosaic of them. It’s a while since I started to do it, but our cloudy English weather has made it frustratingly difficult to do.
But during April, May and June so far, we’ve had some lovely sunny weather which has given us clear skies and I’ve managed to take shots of the Moon on quite a few days, some of them being phases that I’ve never managed to get before.
So I’m getting quite excited! The good weather has been forecast to continue, so I may achieve my goal before too long!
The photo at the top is of the last Full Moon taken at 10.30pm on 27th May, and the one below was taken at 8.30am this morning when the waning Moon is 66% illuminated, one day away from being at it’s 3rd Quarter.
Tags: blue sky, evening, Flickr, Full Moon, Moon, morning, mosaic, phases, photo, photography, waning
Posted in Moon, night sky, photography | 2 Comments »
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
At last yesterday I managed to get a reasonable shot of the Moon when it was (nearly) full! It was very cold outside and there was frozen snow on my car, which had taken a lot of scraping off. So I could only stay out for a few minutes at a time before coming in to warm up and then go out and have another go.
The photo below was taken at 7.30pm, 10 hours or so before the actual moment of the Moon being completely full. But of course I won’t see that from here. It won’t rise until around 6.00pm tonight, so if it’s clear, it will be at least 12 hours past full when I see it again.
The prominent crater Tycho shows up quite well. Tycho is a lunar impact crater in the southern lunar highlands which was named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. It’s about 85 kilometers across, and has rays of impact material radiating from it. To see where Tycho is, click on the photo which will take you to my Flickr photostream where I’ve added a note to show where Tycho is. Hold your cursor over the Moon to see it.
I hope to be able to get another shot of the Moon tonight, because today it’s at perigee. This is the nearest point of the Moon’s elliptical orbit in it’s cycle, and today it will be the nearest to us this year, apart from October. It’s distance away is around 359700 km or 223510 miles.
The furthest point of the Moon’s elliptical orbit in each cycle is called the apogee. The more extreme perigees and apogees often occur around January.
Apparently January’s full Moon is called the Wolf Moon which comes from the hungry wolf packs that would howl outside the villages of Native Americans in the coldness of January.
The forecast for tonight is clear skies and very cold, so hopefully I will be able to add another day to my collection of shots of the Moon on every day of it’s visible phases.
Tags: crater, elliptical, frozen, Full Moon, January, Moon, orbit, perigee, photo, snow, Tycho
Posted in Moon, interests, night sky, photography | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
After more than a week of cloudy, rainy skies we had a clear day with a lovely blue sky, so at last I managed to take a photo of the Moon.
I’d love to get a shot of it every day that it’s visible so that I could have a complete set of it’s different phases, but the weather often conspires against me. Hopefully over the months I can fill in the gaps to make up my collection. I know there are lots of brilliant photos available on the internet, shots taken with much better cameras than mine, but there’s something special and satisfying about taking your own photos.
Here’s one of them which I’m really pleased with. It’s not brilliant, but it’s good for a point and shoot camera. It’s a waxing, gibbous Moon 83% illuminated, 4 days away from being full. The photo was taken on the 26th January,2010 at 5.30pm.
Tags: blue sky, camera, Moon, photo, point and shoot, rain, weather
Posted in Moon, photography, weather | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
I’ve been trying to take photos of the Moon, but I’ve only seen it once since it was new just over a week ago. It’s been so cloudy and rainy that I just haven’t been able to find it, which is so frustrating!
I’d love to be able to take a photo of it every day of it’s phase that it’s visible, but the weather so often conspires against me.
So here’s a photo that I took last month when it was at the same phase as it is today – just over 10 days lunation and 75% illuminated.
It’s not a brilliant shot, but for a point and shoot camera, I’m really pleased with it. I love the craters on the terminator. This is a waxing gibbous Moon, five days away from being full.
Tags: camera, craters, gibbous, Moon, night, photo, point and shoot, terminator, waxing
Posted in night sky, photography, weather | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
I’m facinated by the Moon. I try to study it as much as I can, and I’d love to be able to take a really good photo of it. I haven’t got the equipment to be able to take a really good shot, but using my Canon PowerShot SX200 IS I’ve managed to take a shot that I’m pleased with.
This camera has 12 x optical zoom but using digital zoom as well, I can go to 48 x. I took lots of shots at different zoom lengths and I think this would be around 30 x, according to my camera. The Moon is 87% illuminated and craters can be seen on the terminator, although it is a little bit blurry there. I’ll keep trying to see if I can get a better shot.
The frustrating thing about trying to study and photograph the Moon is that it’s often cloudy or raining so the Moon is hidden. When it can be seen, it’s because it’s lovely and clear, and in the Winter that means that it’s very cold to be outside. But if I could get a good photo, it would be worth it!
Tags: Canon PowerShot SX200 IS, daytime, gibbous, Moon, photo, waxing
Posted in night sky, photography | No Comments »
Monday, July 20th, 2009
It’s 40 years ago today that man first stepped onto another world. While Michael Collins orbited the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended the last 60 miles in the Lunar Excursion Module for the first Moon landing. The world watched and held it’s breath while Neil descended the ladder of the LEM. He paused to check how far the ladder had gone into the surface of the Moon which was only a couple of inches and not the several feet that one scientist had predicted.
Then he stepped down onto the surface of the Moon and uttered those now immortal words “That’s one small step for man….one giant leap for mankind.” Buzz Aldrin followed him as the second man to walk on the Moon, one of only 12 men to do so.
On the September 12th 1962 at Rice University, John F. Kennedy made what’s become known as his “We choose to go to the moon” speech.
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win……..
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.”
This day 40 years ago on the 20th July 1969 that dream came true, and the world has never been the same since. This other world exploration gave people hope and let them feel that anything was possible. Over the years since then that hope seems to have melted away as the harsh realities of life and war and economics took hold.
But now there’s talk of new Moon landings. Space exploration hasn’t been forgotten. At this moment the International Space Station is orbitting the Earth with the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked to it. There are a record 13 astonauts above us. They are continuing to enlarge and build the space station where astronauts from different countries work together to experiment and push the boundaries of science.
This photo is my tribute to today’s historic events and is also on my Flickr photostream. I created it using a Vintage Lego Space Crater Moon Base Plate No. 305.
Tags: Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin, Endeavour, first moonlanding, ISS, John F. Kennedy, ladder, LEM, Michael Collins, Moon, Neil Armstrong, one giant leap for mankind, photo, Space Crater Moon Base Plate No. 305., Space Shuttle, That's one small step for man, Vintage Lego, We choose to go to the Moon
Posted in interests, news, world | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
We’ve had some rainy, misty or foggy evenings lately, but we’ve also had a few clear nights. Tonight when I went outside around 8.00pm it hadn’t got dark yet and I could see a beautiful silvery Moon on a background of a lovely blue sky. At first glance I wondered if it was a Full Moon, but then I could see that it wasn’t quite round yet. It’s got two more days to go before it’s full.
I had a look at it through my binoculars and I could see lots of detail – seas, and craters. The craters weren’t as prominent and defined as they have been as now the sun is shining more directly on to the surface there are no shadows to show the high crater walls.
The other clear nights recently were 5 days ago and 3 days ago. On both these evenings, the sun was shining on the Moon at such an angle to show up the craters beautifully, and on the terminator, high crater walls could be seen jutting out into the darkness.
Another two days to go and the whole process will start all over again.
Tags: craters, Moon, terminator
Posted in night sky | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
For some time now it’s been possible to see Venus shining brightly in the evening sky with the naked eye. It looks larger and brighter than I’ve ever noticed before. That’s because it’s higher in the sky than it usually is, so we’re not looking at it through the Earth’s atmosphere like we do when it’s lower in the sky. It’s also at a point in it’s orbit when it’s closer to the Earth.
Today I got the chance to see it through a telescope. Normally it looks like a bright blob, but through the telescope, it was amazing – I could see it’s crescent shape. A lovely bright slim shining smile hanging in the sky, at 16% phase. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was so beautiful.
I was also able to see the Moon through the telescope. It was stunning. It’s reached it’s first quarter today so it looks like a ball that’s been chopped in half down the middle. At 30 times magnification, the craters were incredible. The Moon looked so large and so near you wouldn’t believe that it’s around 250,000 miles away. Now all I need is my own telescope so I can look whenever there are clear skies!
Tags: craters, crescent, earth, Moon, telescope, Venus
Posted in interests, night sky | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 6th, 2009
After several days of brushing snow off the windows and windscreen before I could drive the car, this evening for the first time in quite a while, I had to scrape ice off it. It’s a lovely clear night. The stars are twinkling in the sky and the waxing gibbous Moon, only three days away from being full, is shining it’s silvery light on the snow that’s still lying around.
The snow looks so lovely, sparkling and glistening as if it had diamonds sprinked across it, and together the snow and the moonlight make everything look so beautiful and quite light.
It’s a long time since we’ve had as much snow as there’s been in the last few days, and I don’t think I can ever remember the loveliness of moonlight on snow before.
Tags: ice, light, Moon, silver, snow
Posted in night sky, weather | 2 Comments »
