Mooooooon!

The other day the Full Moon was at perigee (the closest point during its eliptical orbit). At Astronomy Pic of the Day has a great comparison of “Supermoon” and the Sun, taken with the same equipment.  You can see that “Supermoon” appeared larger than the Sun.

The Full Moon on May 6 was photographed with the same camera and telescope used to image the Sun (with a dense solar filter!) on the following day.

On 20 May there will be a Full Moon and, coincidentally, and eclipse, and the Moon will be nearly “Minimoon”, nearly at apogee, thus producing an annular eclipse.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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9 Comments

  1. Stu says:

    …..River…..

    I thought this post was going to be about Andy Williams.

  2. “The Full Moon on May 6…”

    “On 20 May there will be a Full Moon…”

    How is that possible? It takes more than two weeks for the moon to complete its cycle.

  3. SonofMonica says:

    …river! Using the whole hand there, doc?

  4. Jeffrey: he means “new moon”, obviously, and a solar eclipse. The question, then, is where?

    [On May 20 the first solar eclipse of 2012 will be visible from much of Asia, the Pacific, and North America. Along a path 240 to 300 kilometers wide, the eclipse will be annular. Near apogee the smaller silhouetted Moon will fit just inside the bright solar disk.]

  5. Nicole says:

    Annular eclipses are cool…I will try to see that! Thanks for the tip, Fr. Z.

  6. SKAY says:

    Thank you Father Z. I like to share your posts on things like this with my grandson.

  7. SKAY: Excellent! That makes my efforts to post them worthwhile.

  8. AnnAsher says:

    Wouldn’t that also make 20 May a “Blue Moon”? I enjoy the space weather posts.

  9. bookworm says:

    If you think the upcoming annular eclipse (visible in parts of the Western U.S.) is cool, start making plans now for Aug. 21, 2017, when the mainland U.S. experiences its first TOTAL solar eclipse in nearly 4 decades. The path of totality will run from coast to coast (Oregon to South Carolina) across 14 states, including 5 state capitals and parts of Grand Teton National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park .

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