The Moon Is Upsidedown Tonight ! Las Vegas, Nevada

Vertical rays of the sun are vertical rays of the sun. When they're not verticle, you get angled light. It's a question of light and shadow and angles. Where are the rays full on? At 11 or 12 degrees S latitude. Where is the moon? At 6 to 17 degrees S latitude. Where is the OP picture from? At 36 degrees N latitude.

Everything moves. That's why the angle of light on the moon looks different from different latitudes. It's not 2 dimensional. The phase remains the same, the angle of light is different.

I think it might be worthwhile for everyone to acknowledge that it can be very difficult to visualize exactly what is going on, and exactly where the Sun, Moon, Earth, and the observer are in relation to each other, and what paths they are moving along relative to each other.

It might also be worth considering that it is physically impossible for any of these things to be changed from the expected values unless we actually live in a computer simulation. So if you think that it has changed, then that's basically what you are claiming.

Originally posted by luxordelphi
Vertical rays of the sun are vertical rays of the sun. When they're not verticle, you get angled light. It's a question of light and shadow and angles. Where are the rays full on? At 11 or 12 degrees S latitude. Where is the moon? At 6 to 17 degrees S latitude. Where is the OP picture from? At 36 degrees N latitude.

Everything moves. That's why the angle of light on the moon looks different from different latitudes. It's not 2 dimensional. The phase remains the same, the angle of light is different.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say there, but consider that all the rays from the sun are essentially parallel by the time they reach the earth and the moon. The sun is 93 million miles away, so the suns rays on either side of the moon only diverge by about 0.14 degrees.

reply to post by Uncinus


What??!!?? Tell me, Uncinus, why do you think the angled light on the moon looks different from different latitudes? If this is just a deliberate attempt to obscure the issue with ever more nebulous convoluted explanations having no resemblance to reality...I'm ok with it. Just say so and I'll go away.

Originally posted by luxordelphi
reply to post by Uncinus

 

What??!!?? Tell me, Uncinus, why do you think the angled light on the moon looks different from different latitudes? If this is just a deliberate attempt to obscure the issue with ever more nebulous convoluted explanations having no resemblance to reality...I'm ok with it. Just say so and I'll go away.

It looks different because the viewer's head (and the horizon) is at a different angle.

I think a lot of the confusion about this is to do with the diagrams of the earth, the moon and the sun you find on the internet. They show the suns rays coming from multiple angles. Have you ever tried to draw a scale diagram of the earth and the moon at the correct distance? What about the earth, the moon and the sun? Have a look at this:

www.themahoney.com...

You will have to scroll right to get to the sun. Then scroll back to the earth. It's the tiny blue speck in the middle of the first circle. The moon would be somewhere near the tiny blue speck, but is too small to see.

Here it is scaled down to ATS size, the sun, to scale, in on the right. The earth is an invisibly tiny speck on the left.


So when you work out your angles, make sure you take this distance into account.

Originally posted by abcddcba

Originally posted by intergalactic fire
reply to post by Aestheteka

can anyone tell me why they say the moon rotates at the same speed as the earth which is why we always see the same side of the moon? i've been wracking my brains for years trying to figure out how that works. you would think if that were the case one side of the earth would always see one side of the moon and the other side of the earth would see the other side of the moon always.

That's called Tidally Locked, and many if not most moon's orbits and rotations are tidally locked to their father planet. If the moon had no rotation we would see both sides as it's phases change, about every 28 days.

You may then wonder, why are most moons tidally locked and not planets?, good question but we do observe a different kind of tidal lock in planets close to their stars, especially exoplanet gas giants very close to their star, closer than mercury. Imagine a Jupiter size planet closer to the sun than Mercury, I don't mean just closer, twice as close and more.

Speaking of Mercury it has a sort of tidal lock with the sun (some call it a tidal lock), but it is called orbital/rotational resonance meaning three days equalling two years. Kind of strange to imagine a work week lasting almost four years.

Our solar system is full of very different kinds of orbits and rotations of the planets and their moons. Venus rotates retrograde/backwards, and it is very close to getting a tidal lock with the sun as it's year is longer than it's day. Some say Venus is rotating the same way as the other planets it's just upside down, north pole facing south almost 90º, that is another debate.

We have Uranus tilted on its side, actually over 90º in respect to its orbit, so it moves kind of like a bowling ball around the sun. The butt of Uranus, no sorry (so many jokes can be made of the poor planet), the south pole of Uranus never faces the sun, which creates the strongest winds of any body in our solar system, (sorry, had to insert that one too).

Neptune's large moon Triton, (would be considered a planet on its own if)...it wasn't in a tidal lock with Neptune but the wonder doesn't stop there, Triton orbits Neptune with the same side facing the planet, retrograde, in the opposite direction that Neptune spins, the only 'large' moon that does this

Many other wonders of the moons, two Saturnian moons trade orbits. Then there are Trojan moons, but I'm getting a bit off topic now. Orbital dynamics of the bodies in our solar system alone could fill a whole forum of threads. Hope you have enough interest to look into some of the wonders of orbiting bodies around our sun and the sun's planets.

One last thing also, our solar system's orbital plane is also tilted in respect to its rotation around the galaxy, by a whopping tilt of about 60º, and our system bobs above and below the galactic plane during a rotation/orbit.




I'm not sure if that illustration is correct, I believe north of earth's ecliptic faces the galactic center, so we sort of pinwheel around the galaxy. I wasn't going to spend much time on that and just grabbed an illustration from the ATS archives.

Originally posted by luxordelphi
reply to post by Uncinus

 

What??!!?? Tell me, Uncinus, why do you think the angled light on the moon looks different from different latitudes? If this is just a deliberate attempt to obscure the issue with ever more nebulous convoluted explanations having no resemblance to reality...I'm ok with it. Just say so and I'll go away.

The angle of the terminator line on the Moon looks different from different latitudes because (obviously) people at different latitudes see the Moon from a different vantage point.

However, I'm not sure how that helps your argument. People at 36° (like Las Vegas) and even people at 41.5° (like myself) can still see the Moon very well, and thus they will still see the terminator line be more "horizontal" when it is setting as opposed to when it is high in the sky.

I made the below graphic, and simplified it (for the sake of this discussion) by ignoring the axial tilt of the Earth. You can see that even from 36° North Latitude, the "boat moon" effect still somewhat occurs.


This last image (as seen from 36 Degrees) shows the moon in a similar orientation as what we saw in the image in the OP. Again, these graphics have been simplified for the sake of this discussion. -- but If you include the axial tilt of the earth and the fact the northern hemisphere is heading toward the winter, then you will get an orientation of the Moon's terminator line that looks even more like what we saw in the OP image.

This thread might be helpful:

www.bautforum.com...

Particularly:

I've noticed it for many years, too. It's caused by an
unconcious impression that the Sun and Moon are about the
same distance away from you, even though the Sun is actually
400 times farther. That huge error in judging the distance
makes the angle look wrong.

Here is a pair of diagrams I made to show the geometry:

www.freemars.org...

They are not to scale, of course. In both diagrams, the
observer on Earth is at the "top" of the globe, with the Sun
near the horizon on the left, as shortly after sunrise, and the
Moon high overhead.

The diagram at upper-right shows the Sun and Moon as the same
size, since that is how they appear. In reality, the Sun is
400 times larger than the Moon.

The thing that makes the angle of the terminator look wrong
is the direction that sunlight appears to be coming from,
compared to the direction it is actually coming from.

Here's his diagram, reduced in size slightly to fit here:

reply to post by Uncinus


I also like to remind people about the distance the Moon is from the Earth:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fee707fd0e82.jpg[/atsimg]
It doesn't really where on Earth you are located; we all see just about the exact same parts of the Moon. We may all see the Moon's terminator at a different angle depending on our latitude (although this has to do with the fact that people at ;lower latitudes are standing more of the "side" of the Earth than others -- i,e. they are standing more sideways), but the vantage point from which we view the entire moon is virtually exactly the same.

Granted, people in the arctic and antarctic may technically see more of the "top and bottom" of the Moon, but the difference is extremely minimal.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Yes indeed. The moon looks basically identical (at any given time), no matter where on earth you are standing. The only difference is which way you consider to be "up".

Originally posted by Uncinus
From the book Astonomy for All Ages, preview available on Google. See chapter 20: "Observing the Odd Lunar Crescents on Summer and Winter".

See also Wet Moon

edit on 5-11-2011 by Uncinus because: (no reason given)

I wanted to ask just a couple of questions. Would I be correct in saying that according to the top illustration, that shows the moon on a summers' path and a winters' path that durning the winters path the "Boat" moon will always appear to have the light at the bottom for the duration of the winter like my picture below? I ask because the diagram says winters path give or take a few degrees.. Correct?

Originally posted by CherubBaby
I wanted to ask just a couple of questions. Would I be correct in saying that according to the top illustration, that shows the moon on a summers' path and a winters' path that durning the winters path the "Boat" moon will always appear to have the light at the bottom for the duration of the winter like my picture below? I ask because the diagram says winters path give or take a few degrees.. Correct?..

- The Moon's first quarter phase will always set generally lit-side down (although, as Unicus' graphic shows, the effect will vary depending on the season).

- The Moon's last quarter phase will always set generally lit-side UP. However, the last quarter Moon normally sets during daylight hours, so it may be difficult to see.

- Conversely, the first quarter will RISE generally lit-side up and the last quarter will RISE with the lit side generally facing down.

- A waxing gibbous moon (a gibbous that is getting "bigger") will set with the lit side down, similar to the first quarter.

- A waning gibbous moon (a gibbous moon that is getting "smaller") will set with the lit side generally pointing up, similar to the last quarter.

- All non-full moons (all crescent and gibbous moons) that are at the apex -- i.e., at the "high point" -- of their trek across the night sky will have a terminator line that is generally running parallel to the North-South direction.

reply to post by CherubBaby


It's going to smoothly vary between the winter path and the summer path. The diagram just shows the extreme extents. It does not suddenly change from "winter" to "summer" mode.

The moon at night should generally be illuminated somewhat from below, as the sun is below the horizon at night. Although your interpretation of what is "below" might vary.

The moon will also apparently rotate the same amount as it's path curves (so the angle between the shadow terminator and the path will remain approximately constant.

It's very hard to visualize in 3D. I have a hard time.

Originally posted by Devino
reply to post by Trublbrwing

 

Great link, not. It attempted to download a virus.

First I've heard of that, been there many times with no problem, including about two minutes before I posted the link.

Is darkstar1.co.uk Safe?

Originally posted by Devino
reply to post by Trublbrwing

 

Great link, not. It attempted to download a virus.

Just in case...

www.siteadvisor.com...
www.avgthreatlabs.com...

I don't see any warnings from Google or Xmarks, either, nor does Avast! alert it. It does invoke Java Platform, which some protection programs may object to, but that's not necessarily malicious.

Some kinds of antivirus and spyware software are more sensitive than others, and all are capable of reporting false positives. Safe ratings from McAfee, AVG, and so on don't necessarily mean a site is safe, but virus warnings from some brands of software don't necessarily mean a site is unsafe, either.

YMMV.

reply to post by abcddcba


I never said i took it with my own camera?
I took it myself using prnt scrn while pausing the best movie ever...
No one ever asked me who that was on the picture, but it's surely not me.

reply to post by intergalactic fire


Don't think I've forgotten this thread, I'm just having technical difficulties.
I took a photo of the moon at 3pm and it turned out lovely. Problem is I don't have a camera decent enough to take one at night. Thus far I've tried with my Toshiba Camilieo, My Fuji SLR and my LG smart phone. It just turns out as white blur.
It's now 11pm and I really, really want to prove you wrong The moon has 'rotated' a fgraction of what it did in the photos you presented.
Any suggestions on how to captue the image without it blurring? I don't have a Canon MegaFlurglething

reply to post by Aestheteka


If you have an SLR, then you should be able to set it to a manual mode to pick an exposure, and then either use a tripod, or use the timer and prop it up.

The moon will come out as a blur for one of three reasons:

A) Camera shake (use tripod and/or timer)
B) Not focussed (manually set the focus to infinity if possible, or focus on something distant, but you should be able to focus on the moon).
C) Overexposure. Since the moon is small, and the sky is big, the average exposure calculated y the camera is way too long. You will probably want to use a fraction of the calculated exposure. Take different shots at different shutter speeds, and see what happens.

I'd try starting at ISO 800, smallest F number possible, and 1/60th.

Alternatively, you can use exposure compensation on some Fuji SLRs, try -1EV, -2EV etc.

For non-manual cameras, zoom in as much as possible. Don't let the camera shake.

There's also lots of technical advice on the net.

home.hiwaay.net...

ETA: of course for this topic, be sure to include the horizon, so we can see which way is up.

reply to post by Uncinus


Thanks
I used this - Moon Exposure Calculator

but my slr is digital and the ISO is automatic.
The Camileo is amazing outside during the day - really beautiful pics. Just don't use them inside or at night.
I'll try and find another camera tomorrow to borrow. I'd buy a new one but I don't think it's worth spending that amount of money on one at the moment. I think other things are going to be a bit more necessary in the coming period....

i'll try taking a photo tomorrow morning and then again in the afternoon and hopefully i'll be able to avoid the night shot thing
it's a low end Fuji FinePix BTW