#24C - Moon Music - Craters in the Moon's Shadow - & 5 More Stories [Paid]

TGT 2/16/24: Eclipse Articles for Downloading; A Farewell Conjunction as Two Planets Say Goodbye; Moon Music; Winter Stars on Earth; Astronomical Travel--Craters Near or in Moon's Shadow;

Cover Photo - Super and Mini-Full Moons

In This Issue: 

• Cover Photo — Super and Mini-Full Moons

• Welcome to Issue 24C!
  Links to Solar Eclipse Articles in The Classroom Astronomer

• Sky Planning Calendar —
  * Moon-Gazing - Mini-Full Moon (Cover Story)
  * Observing—Plan-et - A Great Conjunction to See, but Planets Disappearing
  * Border Crossings - Three Aquarian Days of Equality

• Astronomy in Everyday Life - Winter Stars on Earth

  
  The items below are available only to Paid Subscribers
  - Moon Music

• Astronomical Travel - Star Wounds Along the Moon’s Shadow Path

Welcome to The Galactic Times Newsletter-Inbox Magazine #24C!

If you look up … on our Substack newsletter homepage … you’ll see a new menu item: April Eclipse Links. Here you will find all the articles that were published in the various issues of The Classroom Astronomer, our sister publication (though it is still on hiatus). You can go into its Archive and seek the article issue number and read the articles of interest to you, if you are a past subscriber. But a 31-page PDF is also available via a direct link only here. It will download immediately.

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Meanwhile….

A nice brother and sister act in the dawn, Venus passes Mars, a bit of a challenge photo-op—Observing Plan-et. But we lose Mercury and Saturn as they take leaps behind the Sun…on Leap Day! The Moon is the smallest Full it can be! A Teaching Project—pick a phase of the Moon and photograph it about six months apart and see the size difference (see Moon-Gazing).

The Moon may not be in Aquarius, but you can find the constellation in the sky, and on Earth—see Border Crossings. Say welcome to the Winter Constellations….on Earth, too….in Astronomy in Everyday Life.

Also, another eclipse note—looking for some other astronomical sites to see while you are chasing the Moon’s shadow? How about visiting the sites of the seven meteor craters along its American and Canadian route, all within about ~100 miles of the shadow edge—some IN or on the edge of the shadow path—and with visible surface expressions. And to give you some background music while you watch the eclipse, we have a source of Moon Music (both of these articles are readable if you are a paid subscriber).

Enjoy!

Publisher — Dr. Larry Krumenaker Email: newsletter@thegalactictimes.com

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Click here https://www.thegalactictimes.com for our Home Page, with all past issue Tables of Contents and stories indexed by topic. You can also find links to other Hermograph products and periodicals.

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 — for our Subscription Page and subscribe if you haven’t already, or to read in the Archive.

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Sky Planning Calendar

Moon-Gazing

Moon passages by a star, planet or deep sky object are a good way to find a planet or other object if you’ve never located it before.

February 16 First Quarter Moon. See Jupiter more than 10-degrees to its right/west.

February 20 The Moon passes 1.6-degrees South of the eastern Gemini twin star, Pollux.

February 24 The smallest Full Moon of the year.

A good project is to take a photograph of this, and then in six months take a photo of THAT Full Moon, exactly the same way, time, etc. Compare the sizes, like our Cover Photo.

=====>Also, in one month, the Moon gets eclipsed. Details in the next issue.

February 25 Why was yesterday’s Full Moon the smallest? Because it took place almost nearly at the Moon’s Apogee, which happens today. This is when the Moon is at its farthest point of its elliptical orbit. As you know, the farther something is, the smaller it appears.

February 28 That bright white star three Moon diameters away is Spica, in Virgo.

February 29 LEAP DAY! We get an extra day to work! <groan>

Observing---Plan-et

==A Great Conjunction to See, but Planets Disappearing==

Mercury is too close to the Sun to see. It passes behind the Sun (more or less) on February 28th. Never fear! It will zoom into a good viewing time in the evening right after this.

Venus, bright as it is, is also diving into the Sun’s glare, just more slowly. You can find it brilliant but subdued in twilight glow rising about an hour before the Sun.

Brother and sister are available for a photograph! Look on February 22nd 0.6-degrees to its South (to the right in the dawn), about a full Moon diameter, and spot Mars, dim but Venus is your guide to it. Best and last chance for both…..Venus will rise less than 45 minutes before Sunrise beginning next month and be lost until summer….

…and Mars, remains low and dim in the morning twilight, also until summer.

Jupiter was met by the Moon the day before First Quarter and is the brightest evening object (especially when the Moon is gone), setting generally between 10:30 to 11:30 PM local time.

If you want to see Saturn at all, look low in the sky near the Sunset point, but after the 18th, it sets less than 45 minutes after Sunset, when twilight is usually too bright to spot objects in its glow. It reaches conjunction with Sun, about 10.5 Astronomical Units from us (an A.U. is the distance from Earth to Sun) February 28.

Border Crossings

The Sun crosses from Capricornus into Aquarius on February 16th. For two whole days, astronomy equals astrology(!)—-the horoscopes say the Sun is in Aquarius until it leaves it for Pisces on the 18-19th.

You can ‘t see Aquarius when the Sun is in the constellation <duh!). But you can see the Sign of Aquarius if you look hard enough….

Astronomy in Everyday Life

Winter Stars on Earth

Every beginning stargazer learns the winter constellations, and primo among them is the constellation of Orion the Hunter. They also learn to use Orion’s Belt of three stars to look up and right (West) to find Taurusl, and down and left (East) to find the sky’s brightest star, Sirius, the Dog Star. But what if skies are cloudy, or it just isn’t winter? Never fear! They are here on Earth as well! Starting from West to East, we find Taurus….

Heading eastward, we get to the centerpiece constellation….

Well, if you know the various legends of Orion the Hunter, you do realize he was a bit of a trashy kind of guy…..

That leaves us with the Dog Star, Sirius. Spotted that ‘mutt” in Augusta, GA:

Who said you can’t make up your own constellations, or that astronomy isn’t useful?

Moon Music

Moon, June, spoon, swoon. Words that rhyme and could be found in (m)any pieces of music that have the Moon in its title or lyrics. Compared to everything else in the sky, only the word “stars” might show up more often….

….and in virtually every music genre. From rock to pop to jazz to classical music, the Moon shines. My personal favorite is Debussy’s Claire de Lune—I have seven versions of that opus [I also have Beethovan’s Moonlight Sonata, but somehow that never appealed to me]. But I also have at least four Moon-titled recordings (in one form or another) in my classic rock ‘n roll: Creedance Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising, Van Morrison’s Moondance, and Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, and the word is in the Fifth Dimension’s (and the musical Hair’s) Aquarius. But my tastes are wide and eclectic…one movie theme (Moonraker), one sad ballad (Go to the Moon), three American Standards (Moonlight and Roses; Moonbeams; Moon River) and the Irish group Celtic Twilight’s Celtic Moonrise. Going beyond rock and “Moon”, I own an album used by many planetarium operators called Double Eclipse, by Geodesium.

Making a playlist based on a solar system object can be an interesting project,…