(photo P Volker)
Well, here we are December 1st, out of turkey land and floating away from the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Wasn’t that it, the ore ship that went down in a November storm on Lake Superior? Now in December we are getting into fruitcake territory.
There is a extremely deep thing going on beneath all the glitz and glitter that will descend on us soon and that is the wait for the birth of the Christ child. Yes, yes, yes indeed. We wait as our discipline and as an honor.
But what has been knocking on my brain pan is that it is time for me after seventyn or more years to figure out a little about our moon. I have been tracking it going through it’s phases for a couple of months now and certain things have bubbled up for me. All this is nothing new of course but new to me so-to-speak none-the-less.
So here is a little summary of the moon’s phases over it’s 29.53 day journey around our sun:
New Moon (0% illumination)
Waxing Crescent
First Quarter (50% illumination)
Waxing Gibbous
Full (100% illumination)
Waning Gibbous
Last Quarter (50% illumination)
Waning Crescent
and back to New Moon.
So, these are the eight phases that are talked about. And I also learned that there is no “n” in Gibbous. What a strange word, it looks like it needs an “n” though for sure.
waxing gibbous loves, Felipé.
There was a partial lunar eclipse over the USA a day ago .these sound exciting but aren’t! they’re nothing like partial solar eclipses and are bearly noticable it’s where a bit of the Earth’s shadow is seen on the lunar surface and it goes a bit darker than normal.more exciting is the almost complete conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter on the 21st of December for the first time since the middle ages the two planets will virtually appear as one object.the bad news is for those of us at higher northern latitudes they’ll only be about 10 degrees above the south western horizon at nightfall.further south towards the equator the better it gets unless it’s cloudy!
Kevan ~ thank you for the updates. I have a friend in Cairo, is that a good vantage point for the 21st? What is the latitude of Cairo? Felipé.
Cairo’s 30 degrees north similar to Daytona Beach, Florida,but hotter as it’s in the desert.yes Cairo would be well placed for the Jupiter and Saturn conjunction it’s very light polluted but this doesn’t effect bright planets so much but the air pollution in Cairo is cruel.if you ride a taxi through Heliopolis into the centre you can see all the smog and brace yourself to be fleeced by the taxi drivers.there are buses from the airport into town but you’d never figure them out unless you spoke Arabic.Alexandria is slightly more relaxed than Cairo.
Kevan ~ OK, great. I will try and get some pics out of Cairo. I don’t think that I will be going there myself but you never know! Thanks, Felipé.