Saturday, January 10, 2009


Big Moon Risin’

IT'S TONIGHT!
Perigee Moon


I love the moon. I have ALWAYS loved it, and thought it was very cool. Once I took a college course and wrote my paper about Moon Myths. I made my class participation project of a crossword puzzle which was rather more like something an 8th grader would write, but I have copies which one day I might present onto this blog just for fun. I DID have fun with it. I have always found the bigger scale pictures of the moon fascinating. In fact, the first time I actually saw through binoculars a picture of a crescent moon with the darker, shaded part actually showing, I flipped out. WOW. I really SAW the dark side of the moon with the craters, mountains and giant seas. I can't explain to you why it was so mind boggling to me at the time (still is) but it was fantastic. I have never understood the mysterious way the moon works on the tides, nor the menses of women... so many mysteries I have yet to comprehend but I think it is all amazing and worth delving into. I heard tonight's moon was to be the biggest one that will occur this entire year, even though we recently (remember last month?) had a similar gigantic moon. I only wish my own camera had an expensive zoom lense with which to capture it myself for my blogging pleasure.

This article is plagiarized from the internet.
Below is an article from NASA about the upcoming full moon this weekend. If you remember how large the full moon was in December...you’ll like January’s moon as well! There may be some clouds around Saturday night, but be sure to check the sky both Friday and Saturday evenings for the Big Moon Risin’.

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January 8, 2009: When last month’s full Moon rose over Florida, onlooker Raquel Stanton of Cocoa Beach realized that something was up. “The Moon was stunningly gorgeous--and it looked bigger than usual!” she says. “My whole family noticed and watched in awe.”

Like millions of others around the world, she had witnessed the biggest full Moon of 2008--a “Perigee Moon,” 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser Moons she had seen before. “I’ll never forget it.”

Alert: It’s about to happen again.

This Saturday night TONIGHT, Jan. 10th, another perigee Moon is here. It’s the biggest full Moon of 2009, almost identical to the one that impressed onlookers in Dec. 2008.
Johannes Kepler explained the phenomenon 400 years ago. The Moon’s orbit around Earth is not a circle; it is an ellipse, with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other. Astronomers call the point of closest approach “perigee,” and that is where the Moon will be this weekend.

Perigee full Moons come along once or twice a year. 2008 ended with one and now 2009 is beginning with another. It’s the best kind of déjà vu for people who love the magic of a moonlit landscape.
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I hope you are all now more interested in the moon - I think it is still one of the more interesting aspects of our life on this planet.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did not know all that. Cool. Unfortunately it is overcast here.

Tom & Icy said...

Nice to look at, but I don't think I'd like to live there.

That line, Full moon rising, reminds me of Spielberg's movie AI where a couple's son is in a coma and they get a robot boy, but the real boy comes out of the coma so they get rid of the robot kid. It was sad.

Doug The Una said...

Icy, I got the Doobie Brothers' Mississippi Moon earworm.

won tong said...

Well it poured rain so no could do... but we got Fridays posted for what it's worth perhaps tonight being the last night I have a very weird story to tell you about this moon it's weird...It actually happened to us yesterday and the person who was involved couldn't believe it..

won tong said...

Hi Terry ....Tom & amp Icy wrote about a movie by stephen spielberg called Al I tried to find it as I never heard of it but nothing came up could you ask him what it is called etc. thanks SC

Lindsey said...

I love that you get caught up in the same type of things that I do. LOL. Happy New Year

Keshi said...

hey thats great stuff!

Keshi.

Ariel the Thief said...

I was lucky enough to see it, too! Made pictures, too, not sure why, with a little camera this is always the same little spot in the picture but anyway. :)

Sherri Sanders said...

I made sure I got a gander at the moon Saturday. :) Thanks for the heads up!

(p.s. It's me, sherri)

Anonymous said...

we had clouds. i missed it. but last month i saw the full moon at around 6 am in the west...and thought it looked especially big. i didn't know at the time that it was actually closer...i only learned later.

javajazz said...

of course it was
snowing its ass off here,
so missed that one...
sheesh!
but i happen to be
a major big fan
of the moon,
and caught sight of it
the night before
whilst walking home
in the not so dark.

Cie Cheesemeister said...

I always loved to moon people.

yellowdoggranny said...

it was beautiful...and sort of scarry.