Biggest moon you’ll see until Nov 2016The moon looks so big during the sunset that I almost crash into it
My buddy, agogo said so to me when he saw the moon while driving to Victor’s house for TOEFL tuition.
Indeed, the moon looked really big today. Well, you guess the reason. Hmm.. Don’t worry that the moon will collide with our earth although it looks like there’s possible to happen. In fact, both the moon and earth are seperating apart by 2cm per earth year.
The moon looks biggest when it’s near the horizon. I believe it’s because of the refraction caused by the particles of the atmosphere. For your information, from our line of sight, atmosphere is the thickest at the horizon and thinnest at the zenith (overhead).
Therefore, if you want to take fantastic photo, I suggest you do it when the moon is near to the horizons, either it’s rising or setting will do.
Let’s go into some facts. The moon is 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the lesser full moon earlier of the year. It looks biggest as it’s now at the perigee. Perigee is a point where the moon is closest to us at its eclipse orbit which is 50,000 km closer to us than the other side. Simply said, when moon is at perigee (perigee moon), it’s closest to the earth. The opposition of perigee is apogee.
Well, enjoy your show. Tomorrow, we will have Geminids meteor shower!! 
The Great Conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon at 7:41pm UT+8 on 1 Dec 2008
Taken by Nokia N82
What a coincidence! Look to the southwest before the twilight ended. You would appreciate you walk out for a view.
Venus, Jupiter and Moon will get so close in a part of sky 3º across. A binocular may fit them in the field of view. This event doesn’t require any skill to enjoy, just seize the moment, away from your keyboard now and make your eyes wide open.
Go now! (Now’s it’s the time for people in timezone GMT+8)
Cloudy night on 14 Sept 2008
Well, it’s really a very belated Happy belated Mid-Autumn Festival（中秋节）! Another unofficial name is Mooncake Festival. Chinese celebrates this festival by eating mooncake and enjoy watching the moon. Some even lift off the “Kong Ming” Lantern with their wishes on the lantern to the sky.
It’s on 15 August every lunar year. (14 September in 2008). On this day, the moon is usually the biggest througout the year. The moon is called as Harvest Moon in western countries.
However, the largest moon (Harvest Moon) didn’t fall on 14 September but instead the next day. So, we don’t have the largest moon during this year Mooncake Festival due to the moon was still between the perigee and apogee.
At the end, please, enjoy my artwork of moon. The silhoutte was a tree not less than 50m from me.
Join NASA’s return to the Moon by sending yourself to the Moon!
Alright, it’s just your name. 
Just sumbit your name to the website below, you’ll be given a certificate to show your support of the mission. The names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) spacecraft.
LRO’s objectives are to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology. This will be a historic mission.
The deadline of submission of names is 28 June 2008.
http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/
Sequence photo I made for the 4 March 2007 total lunar eclipse
The lunar eclipse starts at 0100 until 0152 UT on 21 Feb 2008 (2200 EST or 1900 PST on 20 Feb 2008). The totality will last for 52 minutes. We’ll have partial lunar eclipse this coming 16 August and 31 December 2009. Americans will have a total eclipse again on 20-21 December 2010. Yet to check for us.
*Americans have 3 total eclipses in less than a year and we had 2 as we’re not favoured this time.
Continue reading ‘Total Lunar Eclipse on 20-21 Feb 2008′
In the next 20 years, NASA will be laying the groundwork for sending humans not only beyond Earth’s orbit, but further into to space than they’ve ever been. The next key steps are:
- Complete the International Space Station and retire the Space Shuttle by 2010
- Begin robotic missions to the moon by 2008 and return people there by 2020
- Continue robotic exploration of Mars and the Solar System
- Develop a crew exploration vehicle and other technologies required to send people beyond low Earth orbit.
Though nearly 50 years old, NASA is only beginning the most exciting part of its existence.
Source:NASA
Chang’e-1’s First Release by China
This is a bit late but late is always better than none.
Chang’e-1 was launched on 24 Oct 2007 at Xi Chang Satellite Launch Site. It’s China’s first lunar orbiter. Following Japan’s Kaguya (Goddess of Moon in Japanese), Chang’e-1 is the second lunar orbiter owned by Asia countries. By the way, Russia is planning on a robotic lunar mission in 2009.
Continue reading ‘First Image by Chang’e-1′
