Ed’s Place
Peter (Cortney called him the famous uncle) and I drove up to Ed’s place in New Hampshire and hung out for the afternoon. I think it was my brother’s first visit in ten years. On the way home we caught the full moon over Mt. Monadnock.
Friday, November 23, 2007
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Could you tell that moon was just shy of full? I saw that moon within probably 5 minutes of it rising (around 3:15 on Friday) while it was full light outside. I happened to be driving straight towards it or I never would have seen it — a ghostly huge-looking disk. I say huge-LOOKING because I know if I put my thumb at arm’s length up next to it, it will magically shrink before my eyes to less than half the size of my thumbnail — although I did not do that on the particular stretch of road I was on.
Comment by Jennifer — November 25, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
No I couldn’t, not until I walked back from my mailbox this morning at about 6 and thought about taking a picture of the moon next to our neighbor’s tall pine. I thought, uh oh, that thing looks full which means if might have been full yesterday which means someone (maybe even Jennifer) is going to call me on it.
Comment by Michael — November 25, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
Around here (Boulder) we never miss the full moon because (a) the eastern plains are treeless and (b) the skies are not cloudy all day. So next time the moon is full, I’ll let you know.
Comment by rakkity — November 25, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
Quit bragging. By the way, for most of my childhood I wondered whether the skies on the range were cloud-free all day, or the skies did not spend the entire day cloud-covered. Oops, I think I’ve said that before, on the blog. When we start repeating ourselves repetitively over and over, are you going to pull the plug on the comment section, Mike?
But Rakkity, how picky are you about what you call “full”? Do you recognize it to the hour, or to the day, or what?
Comment by Jennifer — November 25, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
Pull repetitive comments? If I did that I’d have to pull repetitive titles, story themes, flower and Grok Hill photos, overused words in my stories, and on and on.
Nice seeing your daughter today. She’s one of the best.
Comment by michael — November 25, 2007 @ 7:45 pm
Funny you should mention full. Beth and I were just discussing yesterday and the day before whether the moon was really, really full. I say, if it looks full, it is full. (Sometimes I cheat and look at the calendar.)
Comment by rakkity — November 25, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
Well, Beth (and I can’t believe I’m the one telling YOU this), astronomers consider the moon “full” when it is as directly on the opposite side of the earth from the sun as it will get in that orbit. (If it were perfectly opposite, there would be a lunar eclipse. It’s 180 degrees in one plane, but not in 3-D space.) So, there’s a moment when it’s full. I’m not sure how many degrees away from 180 it can be and still appear 100% full — and I’m curious. It moves all the way around (360 degrees) in about 30 days, so it would move about 1/2 a degree each hour.
Comment by Jennifer — November 25, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
Who is Koskela?
Comment by Jen — November 26, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
But if the moon is full for only an instant, you’d have only an infinitesimal chance of seeing it “full”. Same for conjunctions. The nearest approach of two planets is only an instant, but historically, astronomers refer to a conjunction as lasting for a day or even several days, so why not let the moon be “full” for a day at least.
Comment by rakkity — November 26, 2007 @ 10:35 pm
Toni Koskela — A Finnish footballer (soccer player)
Pukka Koskela– Finnish speedskater
Kenneth Koskela — a watercolorist: koskelapaintings.com/
Erkki Koskela — a Finnish economist
Hille Koskela — a Finnish geographer
Whichever Koskela you’re referring to, he’s probably a Finn!
Comment by rakkity — November 26, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
I hope Peter wrote comments in the Grok Hill log book!
Comment by rakkity — November 28, 2007 @ 5:35 pm
He filled two pages, and had a good time going back in history. He couldn’t at first figure out what the infrequent columns of numbers meant next to your name.
Comment by michael — November 29, 2007 @ 8:23 am
Scrabble scores.
Comment by rakkity — November 29, 2007 @ 12:19 pm