While not a planet, the Moon (Luna) is an important part of the solar system in relation to Earth as it is the only natural satellite of Earth and has a significant effect on tides and human culture. The Moon is the largest natural satellite relative to the parent planets size and is one of the largest in the solar system.
The Moon’s size and current orbital radius (averaging ~383,500 km) causes it to have an apparent size almost exactly that of the Sun. This situation allows for the occurance of total solar eclipses where the Moon fully covers the Sun, however this is a co-incidence to this time period as the Moon’s orbital radius is always changing, currently increasing by 3.82 +/- 0.07 cm per year.
The Moon is in synchronous rotation, otherwise known as tidal lock, with Earth meaning it always shows the some “face”, however the varying Earth, Sun and Moon orientation leads to the cyclical Lunar phasing from new moon (0% illumination) to Full moon (100% illumination) and back.
I am a little behind in uploading this one. This was from the night following the full moon at the end of August, 31/8/2015. I was wanting to get a higher resolution image so decided to do as a mosaic . The above image is comprised of 15 panels where each panel was created using the Canon 70D attached to the GSO 6″ RC with a 0.75x reducer.
When first setting up for the evening it is always easiest to start with the Moon if she is out 🙂
Some planetary images testing out the performance of the 3x barlow.
There was blue skies for a change at sunset this evening so I dragged the gear out and set up expecting (hoping) to have a good clear evening for practicing a few things. Straight out of the gate things didn’t go too well as it took forever (60 min) to repeatedly do the star alignment…
Hi, Well I guess I should start this new site of with a bit of info about why I am doing all this. I have been interested in astronomy since a young age, even to the point of studying units while at University. During this period, the posters on my wall were a mix of old…