Just 16 hours after the perigee full moon, we saw it rise again, this time over the desert landscape above and beside Machtesh Ramon. It rose like a huge orange pumpkin in the sky, slowly climbing to illuminate our observing plateau. Another wonderful sighting of this special moon.
Supermoon on Sunday, May 6, rising 16 hours after perigee above the rim of Machtesh Ramon (Ramon Crater).
Perigee full moon rising above Mitzpe Ramon, not exactly Ansel Adams.
"Moonrise Over Hernandez, New Mexico", Ansel Adams
Last night's Supermoon did not disappoint. We went out to the Machtesh overlook around 7:30PM, a bit later than I had wanted to be there, but there was the full moon hanging low in the sky, having risen about an hour earlier, big and bright. There were young students sitting on the floor of the Bird's Nest Lookout singing Shalos Seudos songs, while behind us the boys from the high school yeshiva were singing their Shalos Seudos songs. A few tourists stood at the edge with us watching the moon rise. There was still sunset light in the west and the combination of it and the full moon gave the carter a glorious glow, especially the distant rim where Shein Ramon jutted out from the edge. Venus was in the west and my wife noticed a bright star very close by, which turned out to be El Nath, the end of one of Taurus the Bull's horns, doing double duty as one of the stars of Auriga's pentagram.
Later that nigh, actually the morning of May 6th, I went outside around 4:00AM local IDST and found the moon hanging low near one of the tall trees in the park near our apartment. I couldn't resist taking this photo below. I hope you had a chance to enjoy it as much as Pam and I did.
Supermoon of May 6, 2012. 4:00AM local time, as seen from Mitzpe Ramon. Photo by Ira Machefsky.
The full moon of Iyar, coming on the night of Saturday May 5, will be much larger and brighter than usual. This full moon coincides with the moon's closest approach to earth, called its perigee, when it will appear 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the average full moon. This is because the full moon will occur with the moon at a distance of just 221,802 miles (356,955 km) from earth, while the average distance is about 230,000 miles (384,400 km).
Go outside around 7:00 PM near the end of Shabbat, and you will see this Supermoon rising in the east as twilight ends. Since there are no measuring sticks in the sky it can be hard to notice that this moon is bigger than an ordinary full moon. But when the moon is near the horizon it looks extra big anyway, for reasons that still baffle astronomers and psychologists, but on the night of a Supermoon, you should still be able to notice how much larger a Supermoon looks as it rises close to the horizon. Later in the evening it will be harder to tell that this moon is bigger and brighter than normal.
Above the moon, bright Saturn shines next to Spica, the lucida of Virgo (Ha'btulah). Cruising high overhead in the constellation Leo (Ari) is ruddy Mars, casting its baleful glow over our "darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night." To the west, the brilliant Venus shines above the setting sun, like a diadem in the crown of night.
This full moon also coincides with the peak of the Eta Aquaridsmeteor shower, a remnant of Halley's Comet, where the earth sweeps through the debris field left by that comet in its orbital wake. The full moon will blot out most of the meteors from this shower, usually peaking at around 60 meteors per hour, but brighter members may still be seen. In any case, it should add a nice sparkling touch to the evenings stellar affairs.
This special moon, planets and meteor shower should make for a memorable night of star gazing.
We held a star party for a group from Wind River Systems last night. One of their number captured this image of the moon, 2 days from full, with his iPhone through our telescope.
Nearly-full moon iPhone photo through Celestron C8 by Samuel Panijel
Remember to Keep on lookin' up and happy stargazing on Saturday night!
DOVER BEACH
by MATTHEW ARNOLD
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Coming on the heels of our being named a Top 10 Romantic Tour for Valentine's Day in Israel by israel21c.org, we were named a Top 10 Wedding Guest Tour by Hatunotblog.com. Lee Balot and Yoash Limon, desert tour guides and proprietors of the Greenbackpackers Hostel, gave us the opportunity to strut our stuff last Thursday by throwing a wedding star party for their guests in Mitzpe Ramon. About 18 people joined them for a night under the stars from our observing location above and behind Mitzpe Ramon. Aside from the bride and groom, Saturn was the star, so to speak of the evening, who stole everyone's heart. I've gotten comments on Saturn for this apparition like, "No Way!", or "You painted that on the lens!", and "This is the highlight of our tour!" Yes, Saturn is that good. Sometimes it all people will let me show, so I try to show it last. The thing about Saturn is that it looks exactly like you expect t to, even in a small telescope. It's too far away for the largest telescopes to show much more detail than a small one, and the main features are large enough to show well in small telescopes. It's the amateur's "Goldilocks planet".
A few people try to capture a photo of the planet with their cameras or iPhone, usually to no avail. It's just too hard to hold the camera steady over the eyepiece to get a shot. But one resourceful guest, Estee Nemeth, who is in the film industry, used her iPhone's video and edited the stream down to the one good frame that showed Saturn well.
Saturn, by Estee Nemeth
It's a bit overexposed and blurry, but there's no doubt about what it is. You can even see the outer charcoal colored A ring and the inner, bright B ring. The pencil thin dark line that separates them is the Cassini Division, where ring material is absent. The photo below shows many of the details that can be seen on a good night with our telescopes. But you must have excellent, steady "seeing", and also alot of patience and time at the eyepiece. As I tell people, "It's called observing, not looking."
Saturn, by Bob English
Last Friday Lee and Yoash got married. We wish them Mazel Tov, and send us some guests!!
zodiacal light reflecting off dust in solar system (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Many people may be away from home for the Pesach holidays, perhaps even at dark sky locations. If so, look to the west shortly after nightfall to see the elusive Zodiacal Light. It is a bright pyramid shaped cone, wide at the bottom near the horizon, tapering to a peak at the top. It will be marked by a line connecting the bright planets Jupiter, closer to the horizon, and Venus to the above left. The line conecting these two planets passes through the ecliptic, the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. The other planets and our moon lie within a 5 degree radius of the ecliptic, so they are never far from it. The ecliptic is called the Zodiac by astrologers, and for the same reason the sun, moon, and planets are always found within the constellations of the Zodiac.
Tonight Jupiter is in Aries and Venus is in Taurus, Venus having just put on a magnificent show passing the star cluster, the Pleiades, last week. The Zodiacal Light is a dim, elusive cone of light that is the reflection of sunlight from billions of grains and dust that lie in the plane of our solar system. The earth is constantly bombarded by these throughout the day and night, but most are too small to show as meteors. Consider them to be motes of cosmic, solar system dust that light up as they reflect the light of the sun at evening. Now is the best time of year to observe the Zodiacal Light, since the plane of the ecliptic makes an almost 90 degree intersection with the horizon, lifting the Zodiacal Light high in the sky and making it readily visible from dark, clear skies. The path of the ecliptic is marked by Jupiter and Venus, so the zodiacal light should appear along the line connecting them. Go outside and have a look and let us know if you can spot the Zodiacal Light. When you do, remember you are seeing a light show put on by the dust that fills the plane of the planets' orbits around the sun.
The Zodiacal Light, as it appears along the line connecting Jupiter and Venus, shortly after dark tonight, April 8, 2012
Venus, Jupiter and the moon continue to put on their grand show tonight (March 27th), with Venus reaching greatest eastern elongation for this apparition at 46 degrees from the sun, almost the most distant it can be (47 degrees). Venus never ranges far from the sun, since its orbit is interior to the earth's, making it what astronomers call an "inferior planet", no value judgement intended!
This diagram shows the elongations (or angle) of an inferior planet relative to the Earth and Sun. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You can continue watching this shinning apparition tonight and tomorrow night, as the waxing crescent moon joins Venus and Jupiter for a last hurrah in the west, shortly after sunset and continuing on for about 3-4 hours until they set for northern hemisphere observers.
Enjoy it while you can, since the next time the moon comes this way Jupiter will be almost lost in the sunset glow as it goes behind the sun for its conjunction in May.
From top right down: Pleiades, Venus, Moon (overexposed waxing crescent), Jupiter, and a myriad of stars abounding above the dome of the Weiss Observatory in Mitzpe Ramon.
zodiacal light reflecting off dust in solar system (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This diagram shows the elongations (or angle) of an inferior planet relative to the Earth and Sun. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
