Tag: Moon

Moonlight

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Fly me to the moon was Stella’s favourite song. She’d heard it as a child and whenever she saw the moon she would either sing that, or sometimes twinkle twinkle little star.

It was 3am and the moon was a half circle, flying high, dancing in and out of broken clouds. A few moonbeams made it into the kitchen as she switched on the kettle and waited for it to boil. She was careful to pour the liquid into her coffee mug. In the dim light she didn’t want to spill it onto her toes.

There was a flash, she looked around and saw, nothing. The world looked the same.

There was another bright flash. This time she was a meteor streaking across the sky. Far brighter than a normal shooting star. And there was another. These are fireballs, she thought. They must be high up. The shadows they cast shot across the kitchen rapidly. One particular one was so bright she thought it was going to hit the house. It made the windows rattle.

Then it just stopped. She waited minutes for another one. Nothing. No sound, no wind, no huge explosion. What had they been? In the morning none of her neighbours had heard or seen anything. She went to work, came home, made a coffee.

Turning on the six o’clock news.

“seven space vehicles have landed near Washington” “no response from them” “civilians are warned to keep away”.

She wondered what would happen next?

Partial eclipse

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I Bodged a hole in a peice of card

Two years ago we had a partial eclipse (about 85% to 90%) of the sun. This meant that the moons shadow cut into the Sun’s disc but didn’t completely cover it.

I knew that if you make a hole in a peice of card and then hold the card infront if a plain white or pale surface you can project the image of the sun onto the wall. This is better than trying to use solar goggles which are not always safe to use. YOU MUST NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN. You could be Blinded. Even if you use sun glasses you are in danger, sun glasses do not cut out the full spectra of the sun and your eyes can be burned. You must not look at the sun! The second two photos were to show the suns image  cast on the wall.

Anyway after that strong warning I will continue… .

When the sun shone onto the card a small image of it was  projected behind the card. This is called a pinhole projection. Then as the moon glided across the sun a little bite appeared to cut into the sun. Gradually it increased. In this case the sun was passing across the face of the sun in one direction but because the projection was upside down the moon appeared to bite in to the right hand lower side but it was actually passing left to upper left.

As the moon crept across the face of the sun I noticed the shadows got less strong. Then I saw the shadow of my weeping fig on the wall. Amazingly all the leaves combined to cast lots of curved moon shadows onto the wall. I went outside and noticed the same thing was happening where the light was coming through the tree leaves. I’ve seen this phenomenon photographed and described on astronomy programmes.

Finally I took a shot of the light vshining through the trees. Carefully not looking at the sun and ensuring the camera lens was not pointed directly at the sun.

Life is interesting  I hope you get the chance to see an eclipse.

X

Moon

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sketch-1550491668382The moon danced last night

Leaping across the sky

It sang of silver shadows

Falling far and wide

The moon rang with music

Notes of heavenly tunes

Rising and falling

moon bows shining bright

The moon smiled last night

As it travelled overhead

Bathing the world with glimmers

And frosty gauzy white

The moon breathed last night

Cool breezes soft and sweet

Gentle dreaming sighing

Sleep in silent flight.

Stars?

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No, this is a blurry picture of Venus, the Moon and Jupiter. Somewhere nearby was also Mars.

This was the view looking East from our house about 6am this morning.

You can’t see it but the sky was crystal clear and the planets and moon were twinkling behind the tree branches. My camera phone is good in low light levels but it has over exposed this. Add my hand shaking and it is not very clear. However it might make for an interesting painting.

There are various astronomy sites where you can find information about conjunctions of planets. I like the sky at night on the BBC. Also I have spaceweather.com on my mobile so I can see things like comets, auroras and near earth asteroids.

Our little solar system is tiny compared with the Galaxy and then the universe, but its quite an interesting place even so.

Blood moon

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Tonight there is a full lunar eclipse which is when the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and the earth casts its shadow on the moon.

As it progresses first there is shadow on one side of the moon. Gradually. Like a solar eclipse the curve of the Earth cuts into the Moon. As it progresses the white light from the sun is cut out by Earth’s shadow until only red light passes through Earth’s atmosphere and the Moon turns orangey red. Then the Moon starts to pull out of the shadow and gradually returns to normal

Tonight the moon is at its closest approach to earth so it is known as a super moon.

As a matter of interest I decided to try and draw what a flat earth would look like…. It would cast a flat shadow.. When it was fully eclipsed the moon would appear to be cut in half. Possibly by a red line? Other effects of a flat earth would be daylight all over the upper side then darkness all over the upper side as we tumbled through space. Also what is on the underside and is there a Trumpesque wall round the edge to keep the water in? I recently read an article about gravity. On a flat earth the people on the edge would be lying down as the gravity would be pulling everyone towards the centre of the disc……

Anyway enough rambling

X

When the sun sets

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The sun was setting and the sky turned pink at spode today. I looked up and saw the moon. A tiny bit bigger than half moon and I realised that you could work out where the sun was setting. Basically imagine you were shining a torch on a ball. If the torch was directly to the side if the ball the ball would be exactly half light and 🌗 half dark  Now if the torch was lower but shining directly on the ball it would be half light and half dark but tipped at an angle depending how low below the horizon the torch (or ☀ sun) was. Now imagine if the torch was level but was shining slightly to the side of the moon nearest us? Then the line between light and dark would shift and curve. The line shifts every night till full moon, then as it passes full moon the shadow starts to get cast on the other side. This leads to the understanding that when we get an eclipse the Earth gets directly between the Moon and the Sun… . Oh I know all of this is simple, but I’d never actually thought it out for myself……

P.S. now 5 hours later the angle of the moon is tipped up so that the curve is on a slant … so the sun is clearly lower down and the moon has moved. .but it also shows the world is rotating too…

Tide

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Time and tide wait for no man

Tidal reef,

High tide……

Why tide?

The Moon pulls on the Earth and the Earth pulls on the Moon. They are gravitationally linked so that one face of the Moon always faces us and the water in our oceans is attracted upwards towards it by its gravity. On the other side of the world there is also a rise in the waters because there is less gravitational pull on the oceans because they are futher away from the moon…..

Why high tides?

The water is pulled up so far by the moon, but as water flows inwards towards the land as the tide comes in it can also rise further if it is pushing into a narrowing area such as a gap between two islands or into the narrowing channel of a river or stream. In this case sometimes the water can overtop the banks if it is a particularly high tide, such as a spring tide. The water will rise higher if it is forced into the estuary by wind as well as tidal forces.

One third of the world’s population live on various coast lines around the world. If the world continues to warm up then these people will be at risk from the rising tides caused by global warming. Many countries have built costal defenses but these are being damaged every year during stormy weather. Replacing the damaged protective barriers is being abandoned in some places as not cost effective and some costal salt marshes are being recreated to protect the land.

Visiting the Moon

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Today we visited the museum of the Moon, an art installation which is on till tomorrow. We got in free but there have been events there that you had to pay for.

The Moon is a huge inflated sphere, a balloon, hung from the ceiling of the Kings Hall in Stoke-upon-trent, part of Stoke’s town hall.

I’m afraid I didn’t get the details of the artist who made it, but it is very beautiful. The Moon is fully rendered with all its craters and mare (or seas). The seas are actually flattened areas where magma or lava has welled up from the interior and flowed out across the Moon’s surface. They are caused because of the speed of impact from asteroids and meteors hitting the Moon, the energy of momentum is converted into kinetic, heat, energy.

But thats the side we see, because the Moon is tidally locked with us, so the face we see is always pointed towards the Earth. If you observe the Moon over time it swings and sways so you can see slightly more than 50% of the Moon but we never see the back. The sides, top and bottom is squashed up so its not easy to distinguish what is visible.

So walking around the installation you can see things you might only have seen in blurry film from the Apollo missions almost 50 years ago. Huge craters where impacts must have shook the Moon to its core. You realise how much more scarred and cratered the dark side of the Moon is. Pitted and dented, the back of it has been impacted over millennia.

The Moon has also slowed the Earths spin which is why when humans are shut away in dark caves to experiment with our body clocks, we think a day ends after 23 hours or so. That is because as we evolved over millions of years the Moon was orbiting the Earth closer to us, and as it moved away gradually  (less than a centimetre a year?) it slowed the Earths’ spin to 24 hours a day.

At the moment the Sun can be eclipsed by the Moon. It just happens that the Moon is 400 times closer to us than the Sun and 400 times smaller. So the Moon appears to be exactly the right size to cover the Sun when there is an eclipse. As time goes by the Moon will move further out and “perfect” eclipses will end. Finally the Moon will break away from the Earth. When that happens the Earths rotation will become chaotic. It already spins on an axis that is tipped over at about 23°. If the Moon flys off into space its gravity will no longer help hold the Earth steady. Who knows we could end up tipped right over.

I’m not an expert so my figures might not be completely accurate. If you want more information please check out Astronomy websites.

The Museum of the Moon is an installation run be Appetite. They help produce various arts projects over the year. We also heard diary entries from the First world war, and a dance performance called “in Flanders feilds.”

I drew the Moon because my camera isn’t good in low light levels. The juxtaposition of the Moon installation and the old Kings Hall made for a marvellous and eerie afternoon out.

Ways to prove the Earth is not flat!

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I keep hearing about people who think the Earth is flat so I decided to do a thought experiment to see if it is possible…

• If the Earth was flat it would be daytime all over the world at the same time, or night time all over the world.

• The sun would rise at the same time everywhere and set at the same time.

• There would be no equator, and all parts of the world would be at the same temperature.

• There would be no north and south poles and no northern or southern lights.

• There would be no need for time zones.

• Flat earthers say the horizon is flat, but that is because the globe of the Earth has a very large circumference.

• If the Earth was flat boats would not go over the horizon.

• If the Earth was flat you would be able to see all the way to the other side using a powerful telescope on top of a big building.

• If the Earth was flat we would be able to travel to the edge.

• A flat Earth would cast a flat shadow on the moon during an eclipse of the moon. (this is because the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon when it happens and if the Flat side was facing the Sun if would be overhead and you would not see the moon, but it would cast a circular shadow).

•  Finally….If the Earth is flat….what’s on the other side? Is it Elephants and Turtles all the way down? ( according to Terry Pratchett)