Our closest celestial neighbour has kept us company for at least four billion years and has entertained our imagination in a variety of ways.
It certainly has been involved in our maturation as a species with man's first step on a body beyond our planet during the latter part of the
twentienth century and will, inevitably, be our first stop prior to any sort of manned travel to a further celestial body such as Mars. The
moon has been a great source of education about our own planet's evolutionary history; it has entertained many inquisitive minds from earlier
cultures and generations about the universe in general and man's role in particular; it has enriched the minds of young children taking their
first look through a telescope and continues to impact our lives in ways we may or may not readily recognize including tidal forces and various
natural rhythms and cycles.
Note: The image below is yet another effort and result whose purpose is to catch the rising and/or setting sun and
moon against well-known landmarks in Greece. An earlier effort involving the rising full moon against the Parthenon (447-438 BC) in central
Athens was realized in Oct/2007 when Luna was captured from Philopappou Hill and
approximately 700 meters to the west of the Parthenon. The result below was taken from a much greater distance so as to yield a much better
aspect ratio between the rising full moon and the Parthenon. The primary task in such an exercise is to identify the optimal time after sunset
which yields a perfect balance between the bright moon and the natural lighting of the archaelogical grounds. From a previous exercise involving
the Temple of Poseidon, this was established to be approximately 25 minutes after sunset
and, more specifically, when the sun has already set and is approximately four to six degrees below the horizon. Once the perspective of the
Parthenon with respect to its physical azimuth and altitude from my shooting location west of the Parthenon was precisely reverse engineered,
the final exercise involved the identification of the "proper" full moon during the calendar year which would simultaneously meet the above
criteria with respect to lighting balance (full moon and archaeological grounds) as well as azimuth and altitude as closely as possible. The
profile to the right of the Parthenon is Mt Ymittos which rises to approximately 1000 meters in height and is the highest of the seven
mountains which surround Athens.
Note: For additional photos of the sun and/or full moon against other well-known Greek archaeological grounds and
sites, please click here.
Body: Moon Mass: 0.0123 x Earth Mean Eq Diameter: 0.2719 x Earth Distance: 356,692 km Sidereal Rev: 27d 07h 43m 11s Age: 15d 06h 21m Phase: 99.7° Diameter: 33.54' Magnitude: -12.6 Rukl: N/A |
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Date: Jan 30, 2010 18:33:54 UT+2 Location: Athens, Greece Equipment: Takahashi FSQ 106/f5 TeleVue 2x Big Barlow Canon EOS 5D Mk I Baader UV/IR-Cut Filter Exposure: 1 x 1/8 sec ISO 800 RAW Image Format 4368 x 2912 image size Auto Mode Software: Digital Photo Pro V1.6.1 Photoshop CS2 Processing: RAW to TIFF (16-bit) Unsharp Masking Resampling JPG Compression |