Moon Muses

Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator

The Fourmilab Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator calculates the dates that the moon is closest and furthest from the earth. It also has a table showing the full and new moons for the selected year.

You can also download the page and run the calculator from your own computer without being connected to the internet.

Inconstant Moon

The Moon at Perigee and Apogee article explains why the moon is larger and/or brighter at certain times of the year. We don’t notice it much, usually, because the differences visible for the full moon only happen every 29 days or so and our visual memory is not that exact.

Stellarium

I loaded Stellarium and was amazed at how cool this FREE program is. It

is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.

I like the feature where you can turn on the graphics to show what the different constellations are supposed to represent. It’s awesome!

New Moon Report

This month’s New Moon Report at StarIQ.com talks about

The Capricorn New Moon is a time to lay out your agenda for the year ahead. While it’s not necessary to spell out your plans in full detail, this is an opportunity to connect to your core and align your intentions. Make at least one commitment to improve yourself and the discipline and order it brings are likely to grow. This focus on your own sense of purpose in whatever area of life you choose is an empowering act with positive long-term consequences.

The Capricorn New Moon will be Tuesday, January 8, 5:37 am CST. Start planning and dreaming tonight!

XMM-Newton Detects Pulsed Heartbeat Of A Weird New Type Of Star

XMM-Newton Detects Pulsed Heartbeat Of A Weird New Type Of Star

Found to be spread throughout the Milky Way galaxy, a new pulsating star type is detected: The rotating radio transient (RRAT) star, which seems to pulse every 4 seconds. Not so weird, really, is it?

Get Latitude and Longitude values from Google Maps

Here’s a handy way to find latitude/longitude from any street address, from this tooltip at Tech-Recipes.com
Google Maps do not display latitude and longitude values, but there is an easy trick to get these numbers. This technique will provide the latitude and longitude coordinates of the center of the map displayed by Google Maps.

Looking up an address in Google Maps centers the map on that address if it was found. Because this trick provides the latitude and longitude of the center of the map, do not move the map around manually after getting the search result because that will change the center position.

When the location you want is in the center of the map, copy and paste this code into the location bar of your browser and press enter:
javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));
A little dialog box will pop up displaying the coordinates which can be copied and pasted for use elsewhere. This code can be bookmarked and then used in the future by selecting the bookmark.

Then you can go to Degrees, Minutes, Seconds and Decimal Degrees Latitude/Longitude Conversions to convert the decimal degrees to minutes and seconds.

Sidereal and Solar Time Clock

This morning I heard that at 14:30 sidereal time we’re facing the center of the universe. If you want to know when it is going to be 14:30 sidereal time in your location, check out the Sidereal and Solar Time Clock.

Lost Star of Myth and Time

I finished reading last night. It is full of interesting ideas – the main one being that our sun is in a binary star relationship with another star. The evidence points to this other star being Sirius. When the two stars are the farthest apart from each other, we plunge into dark ages (which we’re just starting to come out of now). When they approach each other, we enjoy a Golden Age where people can live to be 1000. Imagine my surprise when I saw this in my email inbox this morning – Can Humans Live to 1,000?.

It’s also fun to think about things like Ed Leedskalnin’s Coral Castle. The 100 pound man who said he moved tons of rock using the same method as the pyramid builders never explained how he did it. Here is a fascinating movie called “Mystery of Coral Castle” on YouTube:

Mystery of Coral Castle

What’s a Blue Moon?

First I discovered that it might have actually been MAY that had the blue moon, and not June, as my Qigong calendar shows. Now I find out that the working definition of “blue moon” is actually based on a mistaken interpretation from an old Farmers Almanac.SkyandTelescope.com – Moon – What’s a Blue Moon? So a “blue moon” is not the second full moon in a calendar month, but rather the third Full Moon in a season which has four. According to the trendy definition, there won’t be another blue moon until December 2009. But by the original definition, there will be one in either February or May (depending on how you calculate the start of the season using the Maine Farmer’s Almanac’s rule or the astronomical seasons’ rule). Still have questions? Check out Blue Moon Frequently Asked Questions.