Our closest celestial neighbour has kept us company for at least four billion years and has entertained our imagination
in a variety of ways. It certainly has been involved in our maturation as a species with man's first step on a body
beyond our planet during the latter part of the twentienth century and will, inevitably, be our first stop prior to
any sort of manned travel to a further celestial body such as Mars. The moon has been a great source of education about
our own planet's evolutionary history; it has entertained many inquisitive minds from earlier cultures and generations
about the universe in general and man's role in particular; it has enriched the minds of young children taking their
first look through a telescope and continues to impact our lives in ways we may or may not readily recognize including
tidal forces and various natural rhythms and cycles.
Note: The image below is the culmination of fifteen months of repeated efforts to catch the
rising full moon against the Temple of Poseidon in southern Greece and which was finally realized with the May/2005
full moon. The primary task was to identify the optimal time after sunset which would yield a perfect (!) balance
between the (bright) moon and the natural lighting of the Temple of Poseidon. This was determined to be approximately
22 minutes after sunset. The months that ensued were then used to reverse engineer the perspective of the temple with
respect to its physical azimuth and altitude. The final exercise involved the identification of the "proper" full moon
during the calendar year which would simultaneously meet the above criteria with respect to lighting balance (full moon
and archaelogical grounds) as well as azimuth and altitude.
Note: For additional photos of the rising moon from the same session, please click
here.
Body: Moon Mass: 0.0123 x Earth Mean Eq Diameter: 0.2719 x Earth Distance: 369,105 km Sidereal Rev: 27d 07h 43m 11s Age: 14d 15h 42m Phase: 99.9° Diameter: 33.41' Magnitude: -12.6 Rukl: N/A |
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Date: May 23, 2005 20:53:21 UT+3 Location: Sounion, Greece (37.6564° N, 24.0138° E) Equipment: Canon EOS 300d Canon EOS 100-300 USM II @ 300 mm Exposure: 1 x 0.6 sec @ f5.6 ISO 100 JPG FINE Image Format 3072x2048 image size Auto Mode Software: Canon FileViewer V1.3.2 Photoshop V6 Processing: Unsharp Masking Resampling (22%) JPG Compression |