1 EAGLETON NOTES: The Moon

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Wednesday 31 January 2018

The Moon

Humans everywhere and through all time have been obsessed with The Moon and tonight's super-blue-moon has engendered lots of interest. It's not particularly easy to photograph the craters at a full moon because the direct light flattens it to the ordinary camera. My photo in the sidebar of this blog (taken with a far less powerful lens over 10 years ago) is not a full moon and some of the craters are more obvious because of the shadows. However despite the fact that everyone will have seen pictures of superb quality in every newspaper and on television I cannot resist showing my own effort. It was taken about 4 or 5 hours before the optimum time for this grid reference. 

When I think about it the words in the sidebar are even more poignant at a time like this when so many people everywhere in the world are looking at the moon. "We may be apart but when I look at the sky and remember that we are standing on the same earth, looking at the same moon, somehow you don't seem so far away after all." I love the notion imparted by those words.

29 comments:

  1. Oh wow! what a great job!
    I like the sentiment expressed in the quote, though I'm not sure it would help if I was really missing someone :)

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    1. Thanks Kylie. The quote has, I admit, given me comfort over the years of absence on one side of the world or the other.

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  2. Total cloud cover here last night meant we missed this event. Such bad luck as you know we are always complaining about lack of rain !!

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    1. Very unfortunate, Helsie, from the point of view of the moon but I'm sure the rain made up for it.

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  3. heavy cloud here tonight so your photo will have to do.

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    1. Well, Red, better than it not being of use to anyone.

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  4. Same here.... too cloudy. And we were really looking forward to the view.

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    1. Obviously we were very fortunate Cro. We usually have the cloud.

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  5. better than I've ever managed,

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    1. Gosh, Adrian, that's a massive compliment if ever there was one.

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  6. It is a brilliant picture, Graham, and unlike many other people, I have not seen pictures of the moon in newspapers or on telly.

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    1. Meike, I thought the pictures would be everywhere.

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  7. Your picture is lovely Graham, and all the more inspirational for being taken by a real person with their own camera and not a machine without any feeling.

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    1. Thanks Jenny. Taking it reminded me that I was a bit rusty with my manual photography. One gets very used to the automation available with modern cameras.

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  8. We were able to see many wonderful pictures (New Mexico, USA), but "your moon" is magnificent!

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  9. I especially love the moon thing, since I have a friend in South Africa, and where we see "the man in the moon" they see "the baby in the moon"... sometimes when we have a full moon, I turn my head upside down so I can see the baby in the moon and think of my friend in SA.

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    1. Yes, Mrs S, I believe that many different cultures see different things in the moon's features. Frankly I've just worked on the basis that it was made of cheese.

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  10. To the bottom right there seems to be something resembling a navel with lines radiating from it. I believe that that crater is called Tycho - named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601).

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    1. Well, thank you, YP. Every day is a school day. All I have to do now is remember that.

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    2. I think it looks like the part where it was snapped off a twig, like an 🍊

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  11. Loving the shot, we apparently had a supermoon the other night but as usual it was overcast here so no chance of me getting a good photo.

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    1. Somehow, Amy, I don't think of Mount Maunganui as being a cloudy place. Although come to think of it I've been rained on a fair few times when there playing in croquet tournaments.

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  12. Neat photo.
    Taking photos here the other night was a challenge.

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  13. That is an amazing photo, Graham. We couldn't see the super moon as the sky was overcast.

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    1. We were very fortunate, Frances, in that the sky was clear at least until midnight (when I went to bed).

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  14. Brilliant! But can you explain why our super moon was red? What I was was a milky pinky/orangy coloured moon through a thin veil of cloud for about 30 seconds before another cloud rolled by. It was quite spectacular.

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    1. Pauline your super moon was red because the sun's light was passing through the densest part of the earth's atmosphere. I think that's the explanation. When it's at it's highest in the sky it is generally at its clearest and brightest.

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