Tonight, have a look at the full moon. It’ll be significantly bigger than any of the others you’ve seen this year since the moon is at perigee (as close as it can be in its elliptical orbit). This is not a slight difference that only those deeply into astronomy care about. The moon will be, as the NASA site on this* notes:
…14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons we’ve seen earlier in 2008.
Go out and have a look at it at shortly after 4:30pm today when it rises. When the moon is near the horizon, it looks bigger anyway – combine that with the fact that it is bigger and it’ll be really a rather special sight.
This also means that it is a great night for a night hike! (Note to locals in LA: Griffith Park and Runyon Canyon are beautiful in the moonlight, by the way. I’m just sayin’.)
-cvj
(*Thanks Shelley Bonus!)
Thank you.this picture was helpfull I’m doing reseach about the moon, and why it’s big on the horizon.
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Hello again,
I am sad to see that no one seemed to appreciate, with you, the excitement of our Great Beautiful Fat Moon! Also, I am very sad to note that we were buried under clouds, pending a rare snowstorm in Seattle on Dec. 12th. Two of my life’s greatest joys, are photographing Moonrises and Sunsets. Very sadly the Dec. 12th moonrise will not be in my collection. I know it was beautiful. It always is. Thank you for sharing it in your blog notes.
-kks
Hello, this is nothing to do with this post – though we also saw the fat moon here in London.
I wondered if you could email me as I need to ask your permission to use a couple of your photos from a couple of years ago. I’m the editor of a magazine here in the UK (not a science one though, sorry) and we’re doing a feature on San Pedro but I can’t get the author to understand the concept of resolutions or image sizes and he keeps sending me images the size of my thumbnail for a four page feature. If I could use your gorgeous San Pedro flower images, I’d be eternally grateful. Please mail for more details.
Thanks!
Call me old fashioned, but I thought a fat moon was when Gale Holliday pulled down her pants & stuck her ass out the window. That was a few years ago, but I doubt that it’s rounded the bend toward apogee.