Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri

 September, the month of the Harvest Moon, or is it?

 The full moon that occurs nearest the Autumn equinox is called the Harvest Moon and can occur as early as September 8th or as late as October 7th. This year it will ocur on the seventh of October.

 As the sun sets in the West, the Harvest Moon rises in East to giving the farmers additional light to work a little longer.  In Autumn the moon is 42degrees North of the equator so it rises quickly. The opposite of Spring when the moon is 42 degrees South of the equator and rises aproximately an hour and a half later.

 This year’s Harvest Moon will, as all moons near the horizon do, appear large, but only two times in the last ten years has the Harvest Moon been at perigee which makes it appear aproximately 14% larger. Perigee is the closest approach to Earth by the Moon in its orbit.

 An interesting e mail was posted by K. Michael regarding the SMART-1 impact on the Moon near the terminator, on the Norhtwestern edge of Mare Imbrium.

this may produce a bright flash, or a bright spot we might be able to detect. For centuries people have reported seeing bright flashes on the Moon. They  were not taken seriously,  Now monitering equiptment verifies it happens quite a lot. The highest percentage of these have been reported in the area of the crater Aristarcus. Oddly enough there are more recorded randomly, than during meteor showers.

 Since the Moon has no atmosphere to slow down a meteor, no flash across a lunar sky - just a flash as it impacts the surface.

 September 23rd, is the Autumn Equinox.

 Jupiter is still with us in the Southwest, and don’t forget to look for a trove of deep sky objects in the Sagittarius region of the sky.

 Pluto, we still love you and you will always be a planet in our hearts.

 Marv

Yvonne and I went to Philadelphia Aug 11-13 to attend the East Coast Conference on Astronomical Imaging.  We had a good time and I learned a lot, some of which I hope to pass on to folks via our Digital Imaging SIG.

That is significant right there.  The conference title didn’t restrict the meeting to digital, but there was no discussion of film except folks saying they got started in film and are now fully digital.  It’s a sign of the times.

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