Posts

How to see the Farside of the Moon

Image
Its not a joke you can see the farside of the Moon, while the moon appears to always show one side of it to us, that isn't actually true. You can use your location of the Earth and some knowledge about the most favourable lunar libration times, to observe around the horizon of the moon. We calculate these times for you and put them in our quarterly astronomy almanac . The almanac covers the astronomical events that we are able to calculate in advance, due to the known orbits of the planets and moons in the solar system.  Occasionally multiple librations can occur on the same day, this is a great time to see a much larger section of the Moon's horizon. One of the important things to realize when using the almanac is the where the compass directions are in relation to the surface of the moon. Because this may not be what you would expect and may cause you to look at the wrong section of the moon after reading about when the next libration will occur! Use the image to the right to

Stargazing During a Full Moon - There is More to See Than You Might Think

Image
You have finally got a clear night and of course it is the full Moon. What are you going to do? Well, obviously you can observe the Moon directly, but you will have to use a moon filter to do that. If you do not then you are not going to see the fine details.