Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and here’s to a wonderful New Year to you and yours.
Photo taken out on the lake’s frozen surface at 5 AM under a crescent moon.
By Greg Ness
Taken on: December 18, 2014
Location: Pelican Lake, Minnesota, USA
On Nov. 22, 2014 from 5:29 to 6:04 p.m. EST., the moon partially obscured the view of the sun from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. This phenomenon, which is called a lunar transit, could only be seen from SDO’s point of view.
In 2014, SDO captured four such transits — including its longest ever recorded, which occurred on Jan. 30, and lasted two and a half hours.
SDO imagery during a lunar transit always shows a crisp horizon on the moon — a reflection of the fact that the moon has no atmosphere around it to distort the light from the sun. The horizon is so clear in these images that mountains and valleys in the terrain can be seen.
Explanation: Recorded on April 15th, this total lunar eclipse sequence looks south down icy Waterton Lake from the Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada, planet Earth. The most distant horizon includes peaks in Glacier National Park, USA. An exposure every 10 minutes captured the Moon’s position and eclipse phase, as it arced, left to right, above the rugged skyline and Waterton town lights. In fact, the sequence effectively measures the roughly 80 minute duration of the total phase of the eclipse. Around 270 BC, the Greek astronomer Aristarchus also measured the duration of lunar eclipses – though probably without the benefit of digital clocks and cameras. Still, using geometry, he devised a simple and impressively accurate way to calculate the Moon’s distance, in terms of the radius of planet Earth, from the eclipse duration. This modern eclipse sequence also tracks the successive positions of Mars, above and right of the Moon, bright star Spica next to the reddened lunar disk, and Saturn to the left and below.
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuichi Takasaka
On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with Mars in attendance.
Photo by: Chris Busey Photography
Taken on: December 10, 2011
Quote: One of the earliest written records of an eclipse of the Sun, on 3 May 1375 BC, found in the city of Ugarit in Mesopotamia.
Quote reprinted from: Chasing the Shadow, copyright 1994 by Joel K Harris and Richard L Talcott, by permission of Kalmbach Publishing Co. Also appears in Total Eclipses of the Sun by Zirker. In Guide to the Sun, Phillips says that this might refer to the eclipse of 1223 BC.
Quote provided by: CZ
Wildfires rage on the mountains of Bettys Bay as the moon calmly shines down on the placid waters.
By Hougaard
Location: Bettys Bay, South Africa.
The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone.
It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring – and all of the acts carried out – on this earth.
But the moon remained silent; it told no stories.
All it did was embrace the heavy past with a cool, measured detachment.
On the moon there was neither air nor wind.
Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed.
No one could unlock the heart of the moon.
Art by: AshenSorrow
Quote by: Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Quote provided by: CZ
“The Chinese considered the moon to be yin, feminine and full of negative energy, as opposed to the sun that was yang and exemplified masculinity. I liked the moon, with its soft silver beams. It was at once elusive and filled with trickery, so that lost objects that had rolled into the crevices of a room were rarely found, and books read in its light seemed to contain all sorts of fanciful stories that were never there the next morning.”
[Quote by Yangsze Choo, The Ghost Bride… Provided by CZ]
By Gaston Batistini
Taken on: May 7, 2009
Location: Near Yangshuo, China
cavalierzee 