The supermoon

Posted at 8:04 AM on March 20, 2011 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Science

The cloud cover prevented most of Minnesota from seeing the "supermoon" last night (one exception appears to be Grand Marais) . The moon was closer to the earth than it's been for 18 years. We couldn't judge for ourselves whether it was the big deal the build-up suggested it would be. Here are some images via Flickr.

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Comments (5)

The "science" being reported on the "supermoon" makes me really sad sbout science education and science reporting in the United States. If one takes a look at a lunar calendar (http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/pacalc.html), you will see the moon has a perigee at this distance about every 2 1/2 years or so. In fact, the last one in December 2008 was also at a full moon. The minor difference is this year the close perigee happens right about the exact time of the full moon, where as the in 2008 it happened about 4 hours after the full moon. The irony is in 2011 the true full moon happened at about 4 pm local time (when the moon was still hidden) whereas in 2008 the full moon happened about 7:30 pm local time. So during that night in 2008, you could actually see the moon be closer than you could in 2011.

Before that, the new moon in 2005 was that close - so it would have been bigger during the day when the moon was visible due to earth shine. In 2003, 2001, 1998, 1994 all had large full moons as well (within 200 km of this year's supermoon). There is no way that 200 km would be noticeable when the moon is still over 350,000 km away. In 2008, the perigee was actually 10 km closer and would have actually been visible in our time zone when it occurred.

For all of you interested in astronomy, I recommend following Phil Plait or Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter, read Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog .

Posted by Eric | March 20, 2011 9:27 AM

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I added a few more details in my post about it.

Posted by Eric | March 20, 2011 9:49 AM

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Thank you Eric. But I have no idea how to cite you.

Posted by PpFt | March 20, 2011 11:20 AM

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PpFt - I added my blog address to my name in this post. You can cite that if you'd like. Most of this info is also on Phil Plait's blog, and can be found in recent tweets of Dr. Tyson. Thanks!

Posted by Eric | March 20, 2011 2:45 PM

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Here are the Supermoon shots I took of it rising above the Grand Marais Harbor and Lighthouse.

http://stephanhoglund.photoshelter.com/gallery/Moon-Over-Grand-Marais-Harbor-Lighthouse/G00009MGFTbynRx0/

And featured here also:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/beautiful-pictures-of-the-supermoon-from-around-th

Posted by Stephan Hoglund | March 21, 2011 12:44 PM

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