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09/20/2021 – Ephemeris – The Harvest Moon rises tonight
This is Ephemeris for Monday, September 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 15 minutes, setting at 7:43, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:29. The Moon, at full today, will rise at 8:03 this evening.
Tonight’s full moon is the Harvest Moon. It is the most famous of the named full moons, and was very useful in the days before electric lights. The reason is that the Moon, around the time it is full now, doesn’t advance its rising time very much from night to night, effectively extending the light of twilight to allow more time to gather in crops. This is because the Moon is moving north as well as eastward. The farther north it is, the longer it stays up and retards the advance in rise times. On average, the Moon rises 50 minutes later each night. This week, the interval is down near 20 minutes advance in moonrise times per day, extending twilight and the time each day to harvest the crops for a few more days.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT-4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The autumn vs spring sunset ecliptic. I’m using the autumnal equinox 2021, with the tip of the spout of the Sagittarius Teapot at due south, and vernal equinox 2022, with the red star Betelgeuse in Orion at due south as examples. Click on the image to enlarge it. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.
The ecliptic for the autumnal equinox runs low in the south, a preview of the Sun’s apparent travel for the next six months of fall and winter. Besides the planets, the Moon at sticks close to that line, as do the planets. The full moon rising in the east as the Sun sets does so at a shallow angle, so for a week or so around the full moon, its advance in rise times can be as little as 20 minutes per night. In spring, it can be much longer than an hour.
09/17/2021 – Ephemeris – The Moon has an atmosphere of sorts; Plus, I capture Inspiration 4 passing overhead
This is Ephemeris for Friday, September 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 24 minutes, setting at 7:49, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:25. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 4:24 tomorrow morning.
Jupiter, tonight, will be above the Moon. Everyone knows that the Moon is airless, that is has no atmosphere. That is not strictly true. Apollo astronauts saw glows and crepuscular rays in the direction of the Sun before its rising an after it set as they orbited the Moon. In 2013 NASA sent an orbiter spacecraft named LADEE to the Moon to investigate. LADEE stands for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. It orbited low over the Moon’s equator. The atmosphere of the Moon consists of some gasses like sodium, neon, argon and helium plus dust electrostatically charged by the Sun’s x-ray and ultraviolet emissions and sent aloft, up to many kilometers. The dust will fall back down, but the gasses will be dissipated by the solar wind. It’s very tenuous.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addenda
Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon tonight at 9 pm tonight, September 17, 2021. Jupiter will be moving to be directly below Jupiter by one in the morning. Created using Stellarium.
Apollo 17 twilight ray sketches. Credit: NASA/Apollo 17 Astronauts.
Artist’s depiction of LADEE in orbit of the Moon. Courtesy NASA.
Inspiration 4 spacecraft caught flying over Northern Michigan
The thin vertical streak on the left side of the image is the Inspiration 4 spacecraft against the stars of Hercules in a 15 second exposure with a Canon Rebel T5 camera, f/3.5, ISO 6400, 18 mm fl. The famous Keystone of Hercules asterism is to the upper right of center. It’s a bit out of focus due to my problem seeing the screen at a high angle. (Getting old). It was quite dim, so I actually couldn’t see it in the moonlight. Credit: mine.
I was guided to the time and place in the sky by heavens-above.com.
09/14/2021 – Ephemeris – Lack of spacesuits just one of Artemis problems of getting humans back to the Moon
This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, September 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 7:54, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:21. The Moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 12:53 tomorrow morning.
The bright gibbous Moon is a feast for binoculars or a telescope. However, the speed-up plan to land crews on the Moon in 2024 proposed by the former President is not appearing to pan out. One major item is space suits, which must be more rugged and impervious to the Lunar regolith, or soil, whose grains are tiny, angular and sharp, and get into everything, and can destroy spacesuit joints. NASA has been working on them for 14 years, and by itself could cost a billion dollars. They might be ready by 2025. Besides delays to the SLS rocket, the contract with SpaceX to furnish a lunar lander is now tied up in litigation by one of the contract losers. NASA’s trying to land humans on the Moon on one half of one percent of the Federal budget, plus do everything else it does.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Prototype lunar spacesuit. xEMU stands for Exploration Extravehicular Activity Mobility Unit. Of course. This uncredited image is from slashgear.com in 2019, so I wouldn’t believe the date. These xEMU suits may eventually cost a billion dollars to develop and produce. Click on the image to enlarge it.
09/13/2021 – Ephemeris – The Greeks knew the size and shape of the Earth and estimated the distance to the Moon a long time ago
This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, September 13th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 37 minutes, setting at 7:56, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:20. The Moon, at first quarter today, will set at 11:57 this evening.
The Ancient Greeks used lunar eclipses to determine that Earth is a sphere, and worked on determining the distance to the Moon. From ancient times, the Greeks knew that an eclipse of the Moon was caused by the Earth’s shadow falling on the Moon. Since the Earth’s shadow was always circular, no matter where the Moon was in the sky during an eclipse, the Earth must be a sphere since that’s the only three-dimensional body that always casts a circular shadow. They also used the size of the Earth’s shadow to estimate the distance to the Moon. The lunar distance, on average, is 60.8 times the Earth’s radius away. The first estimates were about one third of that. Hipparchus in the 2nd century BC got much closer. It got even better from there.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Partial Lunar Eclipse showing circular arc of the Earth’s shadow. Taken 04:15 UT August 17, 1970. Credit: the author.
The size of the Earth was unknown until Eratosthenes did in 240 BC. He came up with the circumference of the Earth to a fairly high degree. The Circumference is equal to the radius of a sphere or circle by 2πr.
08/23/2021 – Ephemeris – Seeking shelter on the Moon
This is Ephemeris for Monday, August 23rd. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 39 minutes, setting at 8:34, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:56. The Moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 9:39 this evening.
The area of interest on the Moon for NASA’s Artemis crewed landing program and the target for Chinese lunar ambitions is the south pole, where signs of water ice have been detected in permanently shadowed craters. That is a valuable resource, if one wants to live off the land on the Moon. There’s another resource that is also valuable in finding: shelter from radiation and the Moon’s extreme temperature swings. Those are lava tubes. They are lava channels in which lava flowed, the top and sides cooled and crusted over. They emptied when the lava ran out, leaving a hollow tube. Sometimes part of the upper crust fails, leaving what is called a skylight. Several of these skylights have been found on the Moon and even Mars.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
A skylight betrays the presence of a lunar lava tube. Credit NASA/LRO.
Here’s an earthly lava tube on the Island of Hawai’i, I visited in 2012 with my wife. It was on the site of a coffee plantation south of Kona. Credit mine.
08/20/2021 – Ephemeris – The Moon will pass Saturn tonight
This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Friday, August 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 13 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 8:39, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:52. The Moon, 2 days before full, will set at 5:26 tomorrow morning.
The Moon is passing Saturn this evening. Saturn will be directly above the Moon by about 10 moon-widths or five degrees at 10 pm tonight. Tomorrow night the Moon will have moved toward Jupiter, which at the same time of night, the planet will appear to the upper left of our satellite. The sky appears to us to be a dome over us, which is useful for imagining the constellations, navigation, and pointing telescopes. However, that is an illusion. The night sky is impossibly and wonderfully deep. The Moon is a quarter of a million miles away, Jupiter and Saturn are hundreds of million miles away. The nearest nighttime stars are trillions of miles away, and so on as far as our eyes and instruments can see.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Animation showing the Moon passing Saturn and Jupiter at 10 pm on August 20 & 21, 2021. Beside the Moon jumping position between the two dates, the planets and stars do too, but to a lesser extent to the right. This is due to the Earth’s change in position as it orbits the Sun. Stars rise and set 3 minutes, 56 seconds earlier each night. The Created using Stellarium and GIMP.
07/16/2021 – Ephemeris – The best time to see detail on the Moon (IMHO)
This is Ephemeris for Friday, July 16th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 9:24, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:13. The Moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 1:08 tomorrow morning.
I consider the week centered on the first quarter moon to be the best time to view the Moon in a telescope. The best part of the Moon to view is near the terminator. The terminator is the sunrise line on the moon that we see before full moon, and the sunset line we see after full moon. The terminator is where the shadows are longest on the Moon and indeed on the Earth, with the low Sun in the sky. The Moon has lots of craters in its south or bottom part. We call that the lunar highlands, which is completely saturated with craters. Personally, I like craters. The darker lava plains that were initially called seas (the name stuck). They are flat and nearly featureless unless seen very close to the terminator, where the slight wrinkle ridges can be spotted.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The Moon tonight at 11 pm, July 16, 2021, about a day and 7 hours before the instant of first quarter. Note the shadows that bring out the craters near the terminator. Created using Stellarium.
Wrinkle ridges on the floor of a lunar sea (lava plain). These are only visible at a very low sun angle near the terminator. I can find no information on this image, but apparently it was taken in lunar orbit. This is much sharper detail than can be seen from earth.
07/15/2021 – Ephemeris – What the Chinese saw in the face of the Moon
This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Thursday, July 15th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 13 minutes, setting at 9:25, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:12. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 12:45 tomorrow morning.
Looking at the Moon tonight with the naked eye or binoculars, the dark patches called seas, which are really lava filled plains, make out the ears, head, and top part of the body of a rabbit that appears upside down. It’s the Chinese Jade Rabbit, Yutu. The seas involved, with their English names are: Serenity, the top of its body; Tranquility, its head; the more prominent ear is Fertility; while the other ear is a combination of the Bay of Roughness and Sea of Nectar. Yutu is the pet rabbit of the Moon goddess Chang’e, who flew to the Moon to escape her pursuers. The Chinese space agency has named all their moon landers Chang’e and their lunar rovers Yutu in their honor.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hr). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The Moon tonight with the Jade Rabbit delineated in the seas and one bay the dark lava covered plains of the Moon. Created using Stellarium.
The Jade Rabbit seen on a full moon rotated close to what tonight’s Moon is. Actually, the ancient Chinese saw the rabbit pounding medicine.
06/17/2021 – Ephemeris – Congress approves more money for NASA’s lunar lander
This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Thursday, June 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:31, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:56. The Moon, at first quarter tonight, will set at 2:18 tomorrow morning. | Tonight’s Moon will be almost exactly cut in half by the sunrise terminator, since the precise moment of first quarter will be at 11:54 this evening. Speaking of the Moon, Congress has approved NASA spending of 10 billion dollars over 5 years on the Human Lander System for the Artemis Moon program. This would allow more than one bidder to win the lander contract. SpaceX’s Lunar Starship was the only one to win a contract. NASA and Congress wanted two to win, but couldn’t afford more than SpaceX. Now comes the rub… Congress will have to appropriate the money out of the budget every year for this. The target date for the first landing is 2024, which I’m pretty sure is already out of reach.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT-4). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
First Quarter Moon with binoculars or low power telescope as it might appear tonight at 11 pm. Created using Stellarium.
Three Lunar Lander proposals. Credit Dynetics, SpaceX, and Blue Origin. Credit NASA.
Technical and Management Adjectival Ratings from https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/option-a-source-selection-statement-final.pdf
Also, SpaceX’s bid was the lowest by a wide margin. With the extra funds, it looks like Blue Origin will be the second successful bidder.
06/14/2021 – Ephemeris – Images of the Moon: Then and now
This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Flag Day, Monday, June 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 9:29, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:56. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 1 am.
The waxing crescent Moon shows its cratered highlands and flat lava plains that early telescopic astronomers fancied as water filled and called them seas, so the nomenclature stuck, and we call them seas to this day. When I grew up in the 1950s I was captivated by the moonscapes painted by Chesley Bonestell with their sharp rugged mountain peaks. The actual lunar landscape turned out to be softer, more rounded. The Earth’s surface features are younger than the Moon’s due to plate tectonics, something few geologists in the 1950s believed in. The Moon’s features are generally billions of years old and erosion by meteoroid impacts and ejecta have covered the landscape with a fine dust, over the eons, that smooths out its features.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
A Chesley Bonestell moonscape. Note the sharp detail including an arch at center right and an overhang at right. Such was the state of our ignorance before spacecraft like Ranger, Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter and Apollo reached the Moon. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit Chesley Bonestell.
Moonscape photographed by JAXA (Japan) spacecraft Kaguya with about the same orientation as the Bonestell painting, except from orbit. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit JAXA/NHK.
Image from Apollo 17 showing lunar erosion. Even the rocks in the foreground show that they were eroded. The image also shows astronaut Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmidt. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit NASA.
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