The Moon Is Upsidedown Tonight ! Las Vegas, Nevada

reply to post by ProudBird


Stellarium is updated constantly. And there are plenty of other posts on this thread that agree with me. and plenty of data to support my assertions. Nothing disproves it. So tell me how do you have the same tilt 34 degrees north of the equator as you do at the equator? and btw the earth is tilting northward more and will continue to do so untill late in December, so how does the moon have the same tilt as the equator?

reply to post by ProudBird


I don't know what your point is.

MY point is, I have looked at the moon, and never in my life have I seen this orientation.

1+1=2 means nothing to me.

And if by "it's normal", you meant to say that I'm crazy, then I assure you I'm not.

Let me tell you again, I have looked at the moon since forever........and have never seen this orientation.

Are you going to throw number around again?

I am telling you I have never seen this orientation before in my life, what are you telling me? I'm crazy?

1) throw terminology and numbers around to convince people's personal experience as false. That's so old and only works on sheep.

2) confirms, at least to me, that you have some other agenda by doing so.

Happens all the time...to sheep. I'm not one.

I live in Orange County, Southern California. Never have I seen this orientation in my life. I can repeat it just as much as you throw symbols around.

Originally posted by CherubBaby
reply to post by ProudBird

 

Stellarium is updated constantly. And there are plenty of other posts on this thread that agree with me. and plenty of data to support my assertions. Nothing disproves it. So tell me how do you have the same tilt 34 degrees north of the equator as you do at the equator? and btw the earth is tilting northward more and will continue to do so untill late in December, so how does the moon have the same tilt as the equator?

It does NOT show the same tilt at the equator. It shows a tilt about 34 degrees off this, it's tilted in the opposite direction.

In Mexico it's horizontal. Check it out

reply to post by Uncinus


Its exactly like my pic from last night only reversed. Right?

Originally posted by CherubBaby
reply to post by Uncinus

 

Its exactly like my pic from last night only reversed. Right?

Pretty much, probably a couple of degrees different from a perfectly reversed image.

Originally posted by CherubBaby
....and btw the earth is tilting northward more and will continue to do so untill late in December, so how does the moon have the same tilt as the equator?

Due to the Earth's tilt, the part of the earth titled away from the Sun's ecliptic plane during the day is the same part pointed toward the Sun's ecliptic plane during the night.

As shown in the graphic below, in the late fall and Early winter, the Northern hemisphere (and North America) are tilted more northward during the day. This is why it is cold; because the Sun's rays are less direct. HOWEVER, the night-side of the northern hemisphere at that same time of the year is tilted further South.

Generally, this means that the November and December Sun will be low in the sky during the day, but the November and December Moon will be higher in the sky at night (but only at night -- the daytime moon will be low in the sky like the Sun). Conversely, the Summer Sun is high in the sky, but the summer night time Moon will be relatively lower in the sky.


Add to this that the Moon's orbital plane is currently tilted itself -- higher on the night side of the Earth and lower on the day side -- and the effect of a higher late fall/early winter night time Moon gets compounded.

However, for simplicity's sake, even if you ignore the orbital plane of the Moon being slightly off the Sun's ecliptic, the effect of seeing the setting Moon more tilted at certain times of the year can still occur.

CherubBaby, In Stellarium, select the moon (F3, type moon, press enter) , then press Space to center on it, then zoom in with PageUp (of the scroll wheel).

Then bring up the Date/Time window, and set it to correspond to your photo.

Then bring up the location window (F6), and click up and down the west coast (or all over the world) to see how the moon looks from different latitudes.

Here's a video demonstrating this. (no audio)

reply to post by CherubBaby

The Moon rose (broke the "true" horizon) in Las Vegas at an azimuth of 84º. When you took the picture (about 20 minutes after moonrise) the Moon was at an azimuth of about 88º. How did you determine the 74º azimuth? With a magnetic compass?
Las Vegas has a magnetic declination of 14ºE. This means that when your compass is pointing to 74º magnetic (which is what compasses point at), it is pointing at 88º relative to true north. kayak-land-navigation-maps.kayaklakemead.com...

The directions in Stellarium are relative to true north, as are the ones here:
www.timeanddate.com...

It seems like the Sun and Moon are rising in the correct locations.


As I said, at the time of moonrise, the ecliptic (the path the Sun follows through the sky, you can see it in Stellarium) was close to perpendicular to the horizon at the time you took the picture. It was actually at about 78º. So if the Moon were on the ecliptic, its terminator would have a tilt of 12º relative to the horizon. But the Moon is not on the ecliptic, it is now about 5º to the south of it so we have to add that to the tilt of the ecliptic. Do that and we get a total of 17º.

Here's your picture.

The Moon is where it is supposed to be and its terminator is as it should be.

reply to post by CherubBaby

Stellarium is updated constantly. And there are plenty of other posts on this thread that agree with me. and plenty of data to support my assertions.

Totally false. Where is "plenty of data to support" that assertion?? Or, is it just made up? Stop BS-ing.

This is what the truth is....IF you want to update your copy of Stellarium, you have to go to their website and do it on command. You can always know which version oyu are currently using on your computer, but LOOKING at the version you are using!! Mine is Version 0.10.6.1 It has always been Version 0.10.6.1

On their website www.stellarium.org... The announced the release of Version 0.11.1 On 4th November, 2011.

The Stellarium team is proud to announce the release of version 0.11.1.

Now, let's look at their version coding. Gee, I see a pattern!! It compares to the year of release! Version 0.10.6.1 was a sixth or seventh version released in 2010.....the sub-1 at the end denotes that there was an earlier version 0.10.6 but, they added some minor change.

Now, looks,like they went all year in 2011 with no updates, until November. So, it is now 0.11.1 The "11" is the year of issue, the ".1" is the first change in that year.

It is so freaking simple! And, the ONLY way for me to alter my Stellarium is to do it manually, at their website! They do not have an "auto-update" feature.

So, stop spreading untruths.

Originally posted by CherubBaby
...there are plenty of other posts on this thread that agree with me. and plenty of data to support my assertions. Nothing disproves it....

First of all, it may be true that there are plenty of people posting that they "don't remeber the Moon ever looking that way". Well, with due respects to those people personally, their memories about the look of the Moon are wrong, or at least incomplete. I remember the Moon looking tilted at Moon-rise and Moon-set on occasion.

I think most of those people are remembering the Moon as it looks high in the sky, NOT when it is closer to the East or West horizon. The tilt will be most noticeable when the Moon is close to the East and West horizons.

Secondly, there is no good data supporting your assertions. There are people (such as luxordelphi) who keep saying that the setting Moon on the western horizon should NEVER look tilted at 36° North Latitude (Las Vegas), but she has yet to prove WHY that would be so. She keeps saying that, but people keep showing her that she is wrong. She could keep repeating that over and over, but that does not make it any more true.

You have been shown a lot of data and graphics that shows the moon can look tilted from the Mid-latitudes, and graphics illustrating why this is so. The people that believe the Moon can't ever look tilted have yet to prove why they think this (other than their memories).

The bottom line is that I, too, have memories -- memories of a Moon that occasionally looked quite tilted, but I realize that my own memories are not good enough evidence (and neither are yours), so that's why I rely on the data and the graphics to explain the tilted Moon to me.

Las Vegas is a long long ways from the equator. The equator beneath Las Vegas runs through Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil. It's almost 3,000 miles from Las Vegas to Quito in Ecuador. That's 4,800 kilometers. There is no reason why the tilt of the moon should be the same in Las Vegas as it is in Quito, Ecuador. The only reason this would be so is an artificially structured simulation. Let's get real. Let's realize how far 3,000 miles is. Let's not pretend like it's next door.

Originally posted by luxordelphi
Las Vegas is a long long ways from the equator. The equator beneath Las Vegas runs through Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil. It's almost 3,000 miles from Las Vegas to Quito in Ecuador. That's 4,800 kilometers. There is no reason why the tilt of the moon should be the same in Las Vegas as it is in Quito, Ecuador. The only reason this would be so is an artificially structured simulation. Let's get real. Let's realize how far 3,000 miles is. Let's not pretend like it's next door.

It's not the same at all. Why do you say it's the same? It's totally different.

reply to post by luxordelphi

Using Stellarium, I see a difference of about 140º in the angle of the Moon's terminator (near moonrise) between Las Vegas and Quito.

Correction. Make that about 40º... I got turned around. Interesting...Las Vegas is about 40º above the equator.

It's also worth noting that the Moon was not totally horizontal when it rose this morning in Quito, even though Quito is near the equator. This is because at this time of the year the equator is down below the ecliptic plane at night.

View from Quito, Ecuador:


At Moonrise last night, the Moon was more directly above the 20th Latitude North, above Mexico City. So Mexico City was where the Moon looked most horizontal at Moonrise.

The view from Mexico City:


EDIT TO ADD:

16° farther North than Mexico City (at 36° N latitude) is Las Vegas.

Here is how the Moonrise looked from Las Vegas:

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

Latitude of Las Vegas; 36.2ºN

36.2º - 20º = 16.2º

Tilt of the Moon's terminator in Las Vegas as photographed by the OP.

Originally posted by Phage
Latitude of Las Vegas; 36.2ºN

36.2º - 20º = 16.2º

Tilt of the Moon's terminator in Las Vegas as photographed by the OP.

edit on 11/19/2011 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Yes. Observations match calculations.
Science is a wonderful thing.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Yes they do . Thats why the tilt on the equator shouldn't match the tilt approx 3,000 north of the equator, but it does lately.