Wednesday, September 22, 2010

harvest moon

last day of summer 4

I just got the following note from an astronomy observer.

Watch it right in your front yard---

Summer usually ends on Sept 21 or Sept 22 (the equinox.) This year it ends at ~02h15 UTC on Sept. 23rd, i.e. 11:15 EDT tonight.

And it's the full Moon tonight, making it the last full Moon before the equinox, a.k.a. the Harvest Moon.

And tonight's moonrise occurs just before sunset, so the Earth will briefly be illuminated by both the Sun from the West and the Sun's light reflected by the Moon from the East.

And the full Moon usually looks huge at moonrise due to an optical illusion.

Enjoy.

4 comments:

Linda Foley said...

Yes, I commented on it the 11th in my blog... amazing how fast time is going by... wasn't long ago and I was dreaming of Spring and here it will be Fall tomorrow! It feels it around here too!

Linda Foley said...

Oh and I thought it was on the 23rd at 03:09am... according to the Wikipedia. *shrug*

Anonymous said...

Jupiter is really huge and visible right now, too.

Marian(LondonUK) said...

Great. Thanks for the heads up, I came home last night and kept a watch out,lovely full moon and clear sky for star gazing as far as possible in a street light filled London sky.

Marian (London UK)