Crescent Moon Tonight
Mike,
Yesterday evening we drove back from a trip to the Pike’s Peak area, and the sunset was so spectacular I nearly drove over the median strip several times trying to get a glimpse of it. If my loving wife hadn’t prevented me, i would have shot pictures out of the window while I was driving (like someone we all know and love, who will remain nameless). Anyway I was so energized by that sunset, I tried to get a good photo of a less spectacular post-sunset scene tonight from our front lawn. The clouds were not nearly so accommodating, but the crescent moon and Venus (below the moon at about 4 o’clock) hung out nicely for us over a maroon cloud deck.
Now that I know this camera can do this kind of work, I’ll try some more in future evenings.
Ed/rakkity
Details:
Dimensions: 1813 x 1406 (after cropping)
Device make: Nikon
Device model: E4200
Color space; RGB
Focal length: 23.4
Exposure time: 1
Support: convenient tree
You and Jennifer have me looking up a lot more these days, and that’s a good thing. Two nights ago I noticed the big dipper and last night I spied Joe in the tree, and of course there’s almost always the moon, but in tree filled New England there’s rarely a chance to see it framed against such a sunset.
Comment by michael — June 17, 2007 @ 6:38 am
I’ll send the requirements for my “moon habits essay” along soon. (“Of course there’s almost always the moon” my foot!) Thanks for the photo, rakk!
Comment by Jennifer — June 17, 2007 @ 1:47 pm
I saw the moon and venus last night and knew I’d see a pic on the blog this morning. Thanks for not disappointing me. Nice shot.
Comment by Jen — June 18, 2007 @ 6:52 am
Looking forward to seeing the requirements for the moon habits essay, Jennifer!
Comment by rakkityed.schmahl — June 18, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
It wouldn’t translate well to the blog. The basic idea is I try (HEAVY emphasis on “try”) to get my students to use their own observations to support a generalization that they may “know” to be true from other sources. The best ones this year (i.e. two out of five I considered good, out of 87 students) were on the subject of the colorful moon. They found info. on the web about why it turns colors and used dates and times of observations and times of rise and/or set on those dates to show that it’s yellow or orange when it is close to the rising or setting time. That wonderful APOD (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050713.html)
of the lunar analemma helped.
About 10 bad ones were also on the topic — bad because they just paraphrased the info about why without ever tying their observations to the “facts”.
So I’m close to deciding that 6th graders really don’t have the understanding of a logical argument (and evidence to support it) for me to persist with trying to get them to write this essay any more. (Like, ideally they would show that when they’ve seen the moon when it is NOT close to the horizon, it’s NOT yellow or orange … but even these good essays didn’t mention that.) I’m considering instead asking for an original myth explaining some phenomenon of earth science. But retiring sounds better.
Comment by Jennifer — June 18, 2007 @ 6:59 pm
Sixth grade must be a tough year to teach. But, according to my cousin Belinda (who runs the NSF-funded “Schmahl Science Workshop” for Middle schoolers), that year is a crux year. If you can get any of them to think, those few will benefit from it for the rest of their lives.
Comment by rakkityed.schmahl — June 19, 2007 @ 12:34 am