Thursday 31 December 2009

Lunar quandary

Here's a photo of the Moon, which I took a few minutes ago, when it stood more or less due east from where I was standing. As you can see, it's not quite a full moon yet, and the bottom right hand corner is still in darkness, i.e. not lit by the Sun. What baffles me is that the Sun is somewhere behind, beneath and to the left of me (having set in the west) - so why is the bottom right hand corner still dark and not the top right hand corner? NB, the dark bit is not due to cloud cover, just ignore that.
Answers on a postcard.

UPDATE: As Stringersbeer points out in the comments,
it was a partial lunar eclipse. D'oh!

11 comments:

James Higham said...

These things are sent to test us.

Now, I think I said Happy New Year but if not - Happy New Year.

JuliaM said...

I'll put it down to global warming.. ;)

Have a great New Year! :)

Pat Nurse MA said...

Happy New Year. Hope it's a gud 'un.

Bob said...

Is that not the Sea of Crisis ? 300 miles across.
Excellent short story here from Arthur C Clark which mentions it.

http://econtent.typepad.com/TheSentinel.pdf

Witterings from Witney said...

As JuliaM says - maybe a bits melted!

HNY MW!

Captain Ranty said...

It's a bit of shit on yer lens. El moono is full outside my window....

CR.

Captain Ranty said...

OK, OK, it wasn't shit on yer lens.

It turns out to be a Blue Moon. Apparently it is called that when we get two full moons in a calendar month.

Happens once every twenty years or so.

End of lesson. I'm off to get motherless.

CR.

StringersBeer said...

It's a (partial) lunar eclipse.
Thus.

DBC Reed said...

I noticed this too.I had been observing the moon through a large
astonomical telescope in my front room as you do : seated so you can turn you attention to the television in an instant.All seemed well although I was concentrating on the left-hand side
(quadrant?). I later noticed the funny busness bottom right myself but by this time my wife had insisted I remove the telescope and tripod from in front of the television so presumed it was a cloud (or one of those space ships than normally lurks behind incoming comets) so gave it no mind,what with the large ingestion of intoxicants and the usual drill of hiding bottles from family members who have overdone it.
NB Why are there apparently "seas" on the moon?
Some of the craters are dark as if filled with water/some full of light: what causes these areas of discolouration?

Wall dives said...

Several anomalous shapes and structures on the lunar surface have been photographed. What could they be?

Wall dives said...

There are dozens of anomalous facts concerning the moon that science is at a loss to explain, not least of which is how it is that according to the analysis of moon rocks, the moon, is at least a billion years older than the Earth itself.