[AZ-Observing] Full Moon + Earth-shadow
- From: Paul Dickson <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:11:38 -0700
We lucked out for the third month running on
having a clear evening at Full Moon. Since last March
I have been giving casual "sunset in the East" twilight-talk
presentations at Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill in
Flagstaff about the Earth-shadow. These have been quite
successful and we had an especially good display tonight for
a couple dozen visitors to the nighttime programs at the
the observatory.
Two special guests were on hand. Lowell astronomer
Nick Moskovitz, who specializes in work on near-Earth asteroids,
stayed after office hours to watch the bright heiligenschein
spot of the Sun in the pine trees on the far side of downtown
Flagstaff, and to describe how we can use measurements of
this effect on asteroids and moons to study their surfaces.
Local graphics-artist Jeremy Perez was also nice enough
to come (with his family) to help describe the ensuing
Earth-shadow and "Belt of Venus" phenomenon. I have been
priming visitors with Jeremy's excellent photo of our Discovery
Channel Telescope with the Earth-shadow as a backdrop that
appears as the opening spread of Tom Polakis' article about
viewing with the DCT in the May 2014 issue of "Astronomy"
magazine.
Since the sky was both clear and relatively free of
aerosols, the Moonrise (20 minutes before sunset from behind
Anderson Mesa) and the color-contrast of the three Earth-shadow
layers were especially good. Visitors were quite pleased
to see the sequence develop in just a few minutes,
and the range of phenomena that appear. It generated a
lot of positive reactions and interest. Having the
very circular Moon, less than 2 hours before Full phase,
as part of the scene made it wonderfully photogenic ---
I was dodging cell-phones and cameras left and right.
\Brian
Posted for Brian Skiff, again. Seems to be issue with content. Inserting
blank lines between paragraphs did not work. Removing leading spaces
(indention). Leaving in blank lines between paragraphs.
-Paul
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