Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, March 8th.  The sun will rise at 7:06.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 6:40.   The moon, at full today, will rise at 7:30 this evening.

The full moon, contrary to what you’d think is a poor time to observe it.  The moon is essentially gray on gray.  And at full moon we are looking at the moon from about the same perspective as the sun, so there are no shadows to delineate its fine features.   Since the actual instant of full moon occurred at 5 this morning, some shadows will be creeping in on the moon’s upper right face as it is seen in the evening.  Full moon is the best time to see the maria or lunar seas, the dark areas that make up the man in the moon.  In binoculars can be seen the bright rays emanating from the crater Tycho near the south end of the moon.  Other craters have rays too, but none so long and distinctive. Night by night for the next two weeks the moon’s illuminated landscape will wane.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The image below is of the waxing gibbous moon presumably from last Sunday night.  The phase fits Virtual Moon Atlas for that date.  And I received the photo Monday.  many of the full moon features including the maria and the crater Tycho can be seen on it.  Click on it to see the larger version.

The gibbous moon 03/04/2012 by Scott Anttila

This is from Scott: “The full-size image is huge, a 6 panel mosaic by my DSLR in the (Celestron) C11. It has had the saturation boosted to show detail in the seas that otherwise is difficult if not impossible to detect. You can also see where different minerals are located in the highland areas. Not many people like this view of the moon, I’m fairly fond of it.”