The Third Quarter Moon

Figure obtained by: http://kimbasangels.com/moon.html

               The figure that is shown above will allow me to set a prediction of what I will see in the sky this morning. If we take a look at the figure and know that the moon goes through all of its phases in approximately a month we can see that the moon will go through two phases each week.  Last week when I was observing the moon it was very close to being in the full phase, this means that this Sunday I will expect to see the moon in the third quarter phase (last quarter).  One thing that did not occur to me until I started to look at the night sky is that each night the moon does not rise or set at the same time. I think like most I did not stop and the take the time to look up.  On the previous Sunday the moon started to rise at 6 pm it was highest in the sky at 12 pm and set at 6 am. This however as I have recently found out will not be the same for this Sunday. From the use of this figure and Stellarium I found that the best time to see this phase high in the sky. From Stellarium I found that the moon will start to rise at midnight and will be highest at six in the morning and set at noon.  I chose to check my prediction at around 6am on Monday morning.  The moon looked to be half full this narrows the phases to the first and third quarter moon, from looking at the figure we can see that when the left side of the moon is bright then it is the third quarter moon. Therefore my prediction and what was observed were the same. Next week we can predict to see nothing at all; this is the new moon phase. Stay tuned for my observation next week!

Figure was obtained from Stellarium

The Full Moon

There are benefits to being in a small town. One of which is the ability to see the night sky without all of the light pollution that accompanies big cities. Therefore, I will use this as an advantage to take weekly drawings of the moon and then compare them to lunar charts for the first month. When I become more equated with the night sky I will then try to find constellations each week that I have previously located on Stellarium. The use of Stellarium is to allow me to look up into the night’s sky and to compare what I see on the computer with what I see in the sky.  On my first night of watching the night’s sky, which was Sunday September 11^th at 9:30pm, the moon appeared to be completely full. The farmer’s almanac reported that the next full moon would take place on September 12^th 2011 at 6:27 am. When my results from the sketch were compared to the data above one can see that my sketch and data were close to a match. Therefore, I was close in predicting that the moon was almost full when I was looking at the night’s sky. I will make another sketch next week and record the changes that have occurred.

Sasha