Harvest Moon Shine Sunday Night

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Harvest Moon, Sunday September 11

Low-hanging Moon means more light

September’s full moon is also known as the Harvest Moon, because its low-hanging light in the southeastern sky would have traditionally given farmers extra illumination by which to harvest their crops.

This month, the moon will appear at its largest at 5:27 a.m. EDT on Monday, September 12. In the two days leading up to the full moon, the orb might look full to the naked eye, but its brightness is only half of what it will be on the night that the moon is full

Tourist map of the Moon – Courtesy NASA

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&nbsp:New photos of several Apollo moon landing sites were released by NASA on September 6, showing extraordinary new details about three areas on the lunar surface that were visited by humans. The images include the sharpest views yet of tracks left by the astronauts and their lunar rovers.

The twists and turns of the last tracks left by humans on the moon crisscross the surface in this Lunar Roving Orbiter (LRO) image of the Apollo 17 site. In the thin lunar soil, the trails made by astronauts on foot can be easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar roving vehicle, or LRV. Also seen in this image are the descent stage of the Challenger lunar module and the LRV, parked to the east.

Evidence of early moon tourists – Courtesy NASA

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Here’s a view of the moon you’ll never see from Earth.

NASA scientists created this mosaic by stitching together 983 images of the moon’s North Pole region taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The LRO robotic probe, which has been mapping the moon from above since 2009, has acquired thousands of wide-angle camera shots of its polar regions.

Because the mottled moon only tilts on its axis at an angle of 1.54 degrees (as compared to Earth’s 23.5 degree tilt) some of its surface never sees sunlight. One goal of the LRO mission is to identify these regions of permanent shadow. The probe took the photos in the composite image above at the height of summer in our satellite’s northern hemisphere — the time when the pole is best illuminated. Thus, dark areas, such as those along the inside rims of deep craters and the immediate vicinity of the pole, are probably permanently dark.

The craters around the pole appear to spiral out from it. According to Mark Robinson, principle investigator of the LRO team based at Arizona State University, this is an optical illusion.

The Moon’s North Pole – Courtesy NASA