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I'm starting to find all this talk of 'supermoons' pretty depressing. I'm entirely in favour of making astronomy accessible to as many people as possible - but turning perigee into some sort of 'branded event' just seems to (a) trivialise the whole thing and (b) detract from the sheer wonder of the moon on all those other occasions when it isn't wearing its pants on the outside.
It's as if any music that isn't at Glastonbury isn't worth listening to. It's like any garden that isn't at the Chelsea Flower Show isn't worth seeing. It's like... (That's enough 'It's likes' - Mod.)
For example, there's some total nonsense on space.com: "Supermoon Secrets: 7 Surprising Big Moon Facts". What's number 7? "A Supermoon Won't Destroy Earth". Really? That's a "surprising big moon fact"???
Posted : 14/07/2014 9:35 am
Completely agree with you! And I'm really not sure why the technical term can't be used either... it is a perigee-syzygy. I love the word "syzygy"... one of those rare words with no vowels (if only Scrabble had 3 'y' letters!!).
Anyway, back to the topic... the only good thing about viewing a perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system (trying to avoid the colloquial term like the plague), in my opinion, is the Moon-rise itself. But it doesn't look a huge amount different to any other rise of the Full Moon... you still get the Moon Illusion, perhaps a little more than normal, but not much in it.
Observing the Full Moon can be pretty boring. Surface features are flattened out, meaning that my favourite features of valleys are craters are not at their best. Yes, it's a good time to view the light and dark patches, along with the ray systems, but this doesn't make up for losing the features that look best with oblique light.
And, of course, when the Full Moon is up, it's very difficult to observe anything else in the sky. I remember going down to Romney to visit Martin when the Full Moon was up in March this year. If you look at this time-lapse, you will see blue sky and shadows created by the Moon... almost like daytime! And very few stars visible. Rubbish 😉
Posted : 14/07/2014 9:58 am
Well, it looks like the sky might be clear enough to get a few pictures of the so called "SuperMoon" rising tonight.
I shall pop out to Blackheath at about 8pm and see if I can get any images of the perigee-syzygy 😉 as it rises by All Saints Church. If the clouds stay away, I'll post some images later...
Think I might take the dog, actually. The last time he saw a Full Moon rising, he didn't stop barking for an hour!
Posted : 10/08/2014 7:54 pm
Yes I get sick of having to tell people that there will not be massive earthquakes or plagues of locusts because of the perigee-syzygy. It is amazing how people can be lead to believe such rubbish.
Posted : 10/08/2014 9:46 pm
Topic starter
A bit late - but what the heck...
BTW this is from a web-based science/maths (and occasionally very rude!) cartoonist at xkcd.com
Posted : 20/08/2014 3:57 pm
Super moon madness has started. This Morning programme warns of increase in birth rate due to super moon and there's me thinking that it is due to a lot of pregnant women.
Posted : 08/09/2014 5:00 pm
Topic starter
This Morning programme warns of increase in birth rate
I blame the superwerewolves, running around attacking our womenfolk...
Posted : 08/09/2014 5:12 pm
Topic starter
Here's an APOD showing the difference between a supermoon and a weedy, pathetic, 'could try harder' moon.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140908.html
It's obvious that the one on the left is responsible for imminent armageddon, pregnancies and the end of the DFS sale. The one on the right has nothing to its credit other than the occasional "annual" eclipse - as National Geographic once tweeted when they ought to have put "annular".
Posted : 08/09/2014 6:06 pm
The irony of this - I've temporarily relocated to this place where the sun usually always shines, and it seems it will be cloudy this evening! GRRR I doubt I'll have anything to share with you all :'(
I do like the 'super moon', though I note your concerns and wouldn't disagree - werewolves included ;-), I think some people would not usually look up and so is a chance for them to look this time, and then look again at other times having had their curiosity tickled.
Posted : 09/09/2014 11:32 am
