Moon Saturday 28th July 2018, Saturday 25th August 2018, Wednesday 26th September 2018 and Saturday 18th May 2019

Haven't seen many moons recently so here are some old moons.

Four fancy photogenic moons!

Cloudy or wet weather can make really good effects with my camera if you play with the settings and exposure.

My favourite is the 2nd photo (25th August) because of the navy blue sky and the white hot Moon! Which one is your favourite?

Date:         28th July           / 25th August      / 26th September  / 18th May
Time:        23:25                 / 20:40               / 20:50                / 23:30
Distance:   252,286            / 251,574            / 243,233             / 233,326   (miles)
Phase:       Waning gibbous / waxing gibbous / waning gibbous  / full moon
Degrees:    140                  / 120                  / 95                     / 155
Compass:   SE                   / SE                   / E                      / SE            (azimuth)
Altitude:     12.1                 / 4.1                  / 7.4                    / 17.2          (degrees)

The Spaceguard Centre

Plus it had a shop!

The Spaceguard Centre

The Spaceguard Centre, in Knighton, Powys, is one of the world-leaders in NEO (Near-Earth Objects) research!

There were some telescopes, a mini-planetarium, a moving model of the Solar System and even some meteorite samples there - all on a guided tour! They even showed that new craters were being plotted on the Moon's surface every day!

I saw the mechanics of the telescope in the observatory - after going up the scary steep staircase!

All self-funded from the public and done by 1 astronomer! No help from government or the lottery - boo!

I would give it a rating of 9 out of 10 and I would definitely recommend it if you would fancy travelling up to the Welsh-English border!

https://spaceguardcentre.com/

Moon Thursday 15th August 2019

A rainy night, with a hazy halo around the Moon.

Time 23:40.
Distance 251,132 miles.
Full moon phase.
150 degrees SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 16.8 degrees.

Moon Monday 12th August 2019

A clear night, so good detail.

Time 21:20.
Distance 248,283 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
155 degrees SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 10.6 degrees.

Moon Sunday 11th August 2019

A cloudy night; you could see them in front of the Moon!
A great atmosperic shot.

Time 23:40.
Distance 246,293 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
195 degrees S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 12.6 degrees.

Moon Friday 16th August 2019

Some great detail tonight. The clouds created a great arty effect just after.

Time 23:45.
Distance 251,974 miles.
Waning gibbous phase.
140 degrees SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 17.0 degrees.

Moon Saturday 10th August 2019

And the Moon back home!

Time 21:00.
Distance 243,932 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
170 degrees S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 14.8 degrees.

Cardiff Moon Monday 5th and Wednesday 7th August 2019

I was lucky with these photos because there was rain all week and thankfully the room I was staying in was facing the right direction!

Otherwise it would be a better place for moongazing because there was less light pollution.

(5th (both photos) / 7th August)
Time 21:10 / 21:20.
Distance 228,684 / 234,993 miles.
Waxing crescent / waxing crescent phase.
240 / 215 degrees SW / SW compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 18.7 / 19.4 degrees.

Moon Tuesday 16th July 2019

Here's a photo of the Lunar eclipse 4 days before the Apollo 11 moon landing anniversary.

But a question:
Why are there no photos of the Apollo 11 capsule re-entering Earth to splashdown?

The USA had high-altitude, high-mach number planes, such as the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (2,380 mph / Mach 3.32 & 85,000 ft / 16.1 miles) and the North American Aviation X-15 (4,520 mph / Mach 5.89 & 354,330 ft / 67.1 miles). Also the Apollo 11 flight journal says that a Boeing C-135 Stratolifter "will attempt to photograph this re-entry of the Command Module ... on 70mm still film." The C-135 was capable of 580 mph / Mach 0.76 & 50,000 ft / 9.5 miles.

But you have to think about how fast the Apollo 11 capsule was during reentry.

At Earth Entry (400,000 ft / 75 miles) it was travelling at c.81,000 mph / mach 105.5!

Complicated science involving the blunt high-drag design of the capsule and the atmosphere loosing the capsules kinetic energy through gas friction slowed that down to c.300mph / mach 0.4 at 23,300 ft / 4.4 miles when the drogue parachutes could be deployed. It did this in about 9 minutes!

But they did manage to take such a photo, of the Apollo 8 reentry!
https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo8/html/s69-15592.html

Check out these references:
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-40_Entry_Splashdown_and_Recovery.htm
https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap11fj/26day9-reentry.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/clips/zphpg82
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_entry

Time 22:55.
Distance 246,189 miles.
Full moon phase.
150 degrees SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 8.8 degrees.

Moon Thursday 18th July 2019

Apollo 11, 20th July 1969, Man on the Moon.

We made our first powered flight and put a man on the moon in the space of a human lifetime!
On December 17, 1903,  the Wright brothers made the first airplane flight.

(e.g. someone aged 10 in 1903 watching the first aeroplane flight could also have watched Apollo 11 on the Moon when they were 76 years old.)

Time 23:45.
Distance 249,666 miles.
Waning gibbous phase.
135 degrees SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 8.3 degrees.

Moon Thursday 18th July 2019

Apollo 11, 18th July 1969, CDR and LMP entered LM for initial inspection.

Moon Tuesday 16th July 2019

Apollo 11, 16th July 1969, Liftoff.

Moon Monday 15th July 2019

15th July 1969, Scheduled 11-hour hold at T-9 hours.

Time 22:30.
Distance 245,176 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
155 degrees S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 10.2 degrees.

Moon Sunday 14th July 2019

 Apollo 11 Timeline, 14th July 1969, 21:00:00, Terminal Countdown started.

(1st / 2nd photos)
Time 20:45 / 23:25.
Distance 244,131 / 244,131 miles.
Waxing gibbous / waxing gibbous phase.
140 / 175 degrees SE / S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 6.7 / 14.7 degrees.

Moon Saturday 13th July 2019 - Jupiter

Jupiter is the fourth-brightest light in the sky, after the Sun, Moon and Venus.
It is also more than 1,700 times the Moon’s distance from Earth!

Time 21:30.
Distance 241,921 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
160 degrees S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 15.0 degrees.

Moon Saturday 13th July 2019

Tomorrow 50 years ago, the Apollo 11 Terminal Countdown started, and this time next week 50 years ago, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon!

And today 50 years ago, Soviet Russia launched the unmanned Luna 15 to the Moon. They had to tell the USA the flight path so that it would not crash into Apollo 11. Unfortunately it crashed into the Moon instead.

In Britain you could have listened to the no.1 record on the radio, Thunderclap Newman's 'Something in the‏ Air'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8zmkzshUvE

Or on BBC 1 you could have watched the Film Matinee starring Bing Crosby singing 'Don't let that moon get away'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsSewdsqTqM

Time 21:30.
Distance 241,921 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
160 degrees S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 15.0 degrees.

Moon Art

Here's some artwork in an Andy Warhol style of the four Moon photos I just posted. The artwork is based on Warhol's painting 'Sixteen Jackies' (1964). Zoom in to see each Moon's individual effects!

Moons Sunday 12th, Monday 13th, Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th May 2019

Four moons on four successive nights!
Despite being quite light nights, the spot exposure on the camera blacked everything out other than the Moon, and the angle of the light gave some great crater shadows!

Pick a feature of the Moon and see how much it rotates over the four nights!

(12th / 13th / 14th / 15th May)
Time 21:45 / 20:50 / 20:25 / 20:15.
Distance 229,535 / 229,295 / 229,494 / 230,205 miles.
Waxing gibbous / waxing gibbous / waxing gibbous / waxing gibbous phase.
215 / 175 / 155 / 140 degrees SW / S / SE / SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 46.3 / 46.1 / 38.1 / 28.0 degrees.

Moon Friday 19th April 2019 - Arty Moon!

I decided to do an arty picture of the Moon with a colourful artwork curve I drew.

First, I pasted in my art curve into Abode Photoshop and gave the colours a bit more vibrance.
Then, I put that in the Moon photo, before cutting out most of the mares (revealing a highly contrasted Moon beneath) and making the visible Moon surface stain-glassed.

Time 21:00.
Distance 228,102 miles.
Full moon phase.
115 degrees NE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 5.5 degrees.

Saturday 20th April 2019 - Pink Moon!

The Pink Moon - the 'equivalent' of the Blood Moon, just not in an eclipse! Despite being called the Pink Moon, it isn't actually pink! The name comes from the bloom of ground phlox, a pink flower common to North America.

But why does it look different? Well, it is caused by particles (photons) in Earth's atmosphere. Because they scatter blue light better than red light, bluer photons get scattered (so the sky usually looks blue) but redder ones pass through the atmosphere.

So why do they always occur near the horizon? Well, because the light is travelling further through the atmosphere than when the Moon is high in the sky.

(1st / 2nd photos)
Time 21:09 / 22:46.
Distance 230,328 / 230,328 miles.
Waning gibbous / waning gibbous phase.
105 / 125 degrees E / SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude -4.2 / 8.1 degrees.

Moon Thursday 18th April 2019

First Moon in nearly a month!

Time 23:00.
Distance 227,297 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
150 degrees SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 28.7 degrees.

Moon Thursday 21st March 2019

Full supermoon on the March 2019 equinox - this is a vernal equinox - vernal from Latin 'vernus' meaning 'of the spring' and equinox from Latin meaning 'equality of night and day'.

This is the closest a full moon and the March equinox have come since March 2000! You will have to wait 11 years to get them less than a day apart again!

(In the Southern Hemisphere, this March full moon counts as your Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon is the full moon occurring closest to the autumnal equinox.)

Time 22:35.
Distance 224,094 miles.
Full moon phase.
135 degrees SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 27.3 degrees.

Moon Monday 18th February 2019

A good photo but the details look flat because the sun is hitting the craters full on and there's no shadow!

I compared this photo with 18th November 2018 when the sun's light angle to the Moon made a terminator and great shadows, e.g. on the crater Copernicus.

Time 19:40.
Distance 221,774 miles.
Waxing gibbous phase.
100 degrees E compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 31.5 degrees.

Moon Friday 15th and Sunday 17th February 2019

In the evening the Moon was nearly above my house so it was difficult to get a good photo of out of my bedroom window!

(15th / 17th Feb)
Time 19:30 / 21:30.
Distance 228,472 / 222,928 miles.
Waxing gibbous / waxing gibbous phase.
150 / 150 degrees SE / SE compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 55.5 / 53.9 degrees.

January Moons

Moon Wednesday 9th, Monday 14th and Wednesday 30th January

Because of the rainy and cloudy weather, I only managed 3 photos in January, and haven't had the chance to use the new telescope to take pictures. But the 3 photos I did get show three different phases!

(9th Jan / 14th Jan / 30th Jan)
Time 18:15 / 19:50 / 07:15.
Distance 252,295 / 242,490 / 245,056 miles.
Waxing crescent / first quarter / waning crescent phase.
225 / 205 / 170 degrees SW / SW / S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 10.5 / 41.0 / 18.0 degrees.

Xmas Telescope

This is my Christmas present, a Skywatcher BKP-1145-EQ1 Reflector telescope. It has two interchangeable eyepieces (25mm and 10mm), a Barrow Lens, a Red Dot Finder and a motor drive. Classic! Good photos of the Moon, here we come!

...but with the weather at the moment, I would have been better off with a Grey Cloudwatcher!

Moon 24th December 2018

At the time that the photo was taken, according to NASA's Santa Tracker, Father Christmas was heading from the Balkans into Italy! Did you see him?

Time 20:50.
Distance 249,915 miles.
Waning gibbous phase.
85 degrees E compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 20.7 degrees.

Moon 22nd December 2018

It was too cloudy for the winter solstice (the 21st)...
The day after (the 22nd), still cloudy so a great 'arty' photo...
And it cleared up later, so a proper detailed photo!
And it was a full moon, so HOWWWLLLLLLL!

Time 18:30 / 21:00.
Distance 226,230 / 226,230 miles.
Full moon / full moon phase.
80 / 110 degrees E / E compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 19.3 / 41.0 degrees.

Moon 14th December 2018

The terminator is right on the 1971 Apollo 15 landing site, on the Hadley Rille in the Apennine region!

This was the first mission where the Lunar Roving Vehicle (the "Moon buggy") was used. Even though its top speed was meant to be about 8 mph, Eugene Cernan later hit 11.2 mph, making him the unofficial lunar land-speed record holder!

A recording of the Apollo 15 launch was included in the "Sounds of Earth" on Voyager 1, which is now 13.5 billion miles from Earth.

Time 16:45.
Distance 249,915 miles.
Waxing crescent phase.
160 degrees S compass point (azimuth).
Altitude 25.6 degrees.