Greetings Earthlings! In keeping with the “Month of Variety” figured it was time to go with something out of this world. One of the many great things about living out in the country is you get to experience all that the night has to offer. If the howling coyotes don’t intrigue you or the bats don’t take your breath away (literally spooked one out from under our deck tonight) and the billions of visible stars don’t captivate you .. there’s always the majesty that is …
… the full Moon. In particular I’ve always referred to this as a Harvest Moon. Not sure where I learned that, but guessing once again it has its roots in my early education years since the fact it was orange is what I associate with the Harvest Moon. According to Wikipedia, that may not be a requirement. What makes it the Harvest Moon is the closest full moon to the Autumnal Equinox. Now whether that means it is always orange is left unclear. Another interesting note was that the Harvest Moons are unique in that the time difference between when the moon rises on successive evenings is significantly shorter than average. Typically the moon rises 50-47 minutes later each day. The Harvest Moon successive nights is only in the 30 minute range.
Personally, I generally liked the half moon form better than the full. Just gives a more eerie feel and the texture on the surface at the midpoint gives a cool jaggedness too it. And as Pink Floyd so eloquently stated, don’t let the band you’re in start playing a different tune or you just might be there.
I can imagine the anguish that previous statement probably caused. “The dark side of the moon isn’t referring to the “missing” part you idiot, it is meant to refer to the OTHER side of the moon”. You know, the one that was introduced to us thanks to Apollo 8 in 1968 – since that point it is no longer a mystery, we KNOW what the back side of the moon looks like and it is bright pink with millions of multi-color spots all over it – pretty much looks like a giant cupcake with sprinkles.
Question time – what direction does the Moon orbit the Earth? If you said same direction as the Earth.. you get a big gold star! Now what appears to be the harder question since there are a lot of people out there that don’t know the correct answer (and yet they are still allowed to vote). Does the Earth orbit about around the Sun or does the Sun orbit around the Earth?
Hit the jump to see a few more shots of our little buddy in the sky
Life Intrigued 