Mercury

Hm, thanks for that information.

yeah and Sirius is visible all the time - very clear and bright, not far away from Orions bend

Huor wrote:
yeah and Sirius is visible all the time - very clear and bright, not far away from Orions bend

Yea and this is why is the whole SIRIUS Sector as name a big FAIL

Anyone see the abnormally large Moon recently?
Apparently it was the closest it has been to earth for the next 20 years and was very large in the sky compared to normal.

I missed it sadly

Chips wrote:
Anyone see the abnormally large Moon recently?
Apparently it was the closest it has been to earth for the next 20 years and was very large in the sky compared to normal.

I missed it sadly

Weather was too cloudy to see it here.

Chips wrote:
Anyone see the abnormally large Moon recently?
Apparently it was the closest it has been to earth for the next 20 years and was very large in the sky compared to normal.

I missed it sadly

YES! It woke me up through the window, I wondered what the hell it was! (Didn’t actually get up to investigate…half asleep xD) Now I know.

Isnt it generally known that our moon moves away from earth about a few centimeters a year? So how could it be that he was on the closest distance to earth for the next 20 years?

Moon sizes may also differ on its position on the sky as there are some optical zooming by the light rays on their way through the atmosphere (kinda zoom effect - similar to the one where the little gold fishes in glasses are way bigger than as they normally are ;))

As someone who likes to do a bit of sea fishing I can safely say that the moon certainly doesn’t orbit the earth at a fixed distance. You can stand on the coast some evenings when the full moon is coming up over the horizon in absolute awe at the size of the damn thing it’s so much closer than normal. When you see a big moon like that you just know the tide is going to be massive which serves as a warning to watch you don’t get cut off.

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201111/6944/Massive-perigee-moon-to-pop-eyes-tomorrow-night

Gotta wait until 2029 for it to happen again

p.s. wikipedia for moon orbit shows that the distance can vary by 50000km depending upon the orbit

so lets call it - it is moving along an elliptical cycle around us.
Interesting to know as i had the impression moon will fall on earth last year. It was amazing big. Maybe this point of closest distance depends on the location you are on earth.

Kuze wrote:

Huor wrote:
yeah and Sirius is visible all the time - very clear and bright, not far away from Orions bend

Yea and this is why is the whole SIRIUS Sector as name a big FAIL

So, i always think that: they just jump to that direction, and named the area to Sirius, so that not mean they living in Sirius.

Huor wrote:
so lets call it - it is moving along an elliptical cycle around us.
Interesting to know as i had the impression moon will fall on earth last year. It was amazing big. Maybe this point of closest distance depends on the location you are on earth.

The distance from the centre of the moon to the centre of the Earth is not dependant upon where on the earth you are standing

For observations about closeness based upon your distance from the centre of the earth - If you were in a plane at 37000 feet you are still only 11km’s “closer” than at sea level, which would result in no discernible size difference.

Since this was the “closest” the moon has been, it doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been similarly close (but not so close) orbit paths recently - which would therefore result in the large moon you saw
If you knew the date you could probably look it up and find out

Don’t be daft chips, it happens every single month. Trust me, I know the tides, and I have a front row seat.

Gisteron wrote:
isn’t it imaginable there might have been some anomaly in the air, maybe a warmer cloud or something like that, so Luna appeared larger to certain people while it wasn’t essentialy closer in fact?

Very unlikely. Plus, it’s been widely said that the moon has in fact come closer than usual; that’s not something up in the air, it’s factual.

Timmy51m wrote:
Don’t be daft chips, it happens every single month. Trust me, I know the tides, and I have a front row seat.

??

If you’re talking about the perigee and apogee - then they occur frequently, just the recent perigee they called a “super perigee” and has the moon at it’s closest to earth for the past 18 years, and coming 20 years As said, he may have seen just that.

However, I am accurate to say your location is not a factor (noticeable). The orbit means differences of up to 50,000km in the moon’s proximity. Perigee is still perigee whether you’re in US, UK, SA, Aus or Timbuktu!

So I’m confused about your post now

I’m simply saying Chips, that if you fish off the beach at high tides like I do, with only the sea as your horizon, then you actually notice these things. The moon is at it’s closest observable point to you when it rises over the horizon and as it rises it gets further away, so you can really see when it’s big and in your face, which happens on the biggest tides every single month.

As you know, the proximity of the moon to us determines the height of the tide, we get one big high tide of around 13 metres and then roughly 2 weeks later we get our smallest high tide of around 6 metres where I am, that should give you some idea of the difference in pull acting on the sea between the perigree and apogee as you put it. It shouldn’t take you more than a second or two to realise that’s a big difference in proximity to us, but I doubt you ever get a chance to regularly observe that difference.

If you live in land, you probably only see the moon when it’s already up off of sea level and probably don’t look at it much anyway, when you fish and have nothing but sea and darkness to look at, you look at the moon a lot. So super perigree or not, the moon looks bloody big when it’s at the closest point in it’s orbit.

Simply put, if you don’t observe the moon much, and one night you happen to be in the right place, at the right time, with a good view of the horizon, then you will think the moon is massive compared to what you usually see, super perigree or just your average one. Does that make sense to you?

I’m simply saying Chips, that if you fish off the beach at high tides like I do, with only the sea as your horizon, then you actually notice these things. The moon is at it’s closest observable point to you when it rises over the horizon and as it rises it gets further away, so you can really see when it’s big and in your face, which happens on the biggest tides every single month.

That is actually false. This part is an optical illusion caused by the atmosphere.

The difference in distance you get in a day is negligible.

That maybe so, but you can still tell when it’s bloody bigger than usual. lol.

FriendlyFire wrote:

I’m simply saying Chips, that if you fish off the beach at high tides like I do, with only the sea as your horizon, then you actually notice these things. The moon is at it’s closest observable point to you when it rises over the horizon and as it rises it gets further away, so you can really see when it’s big and in your face, which happens on the biggest tides every single month.

That is actually false. This part is an optical illusion caused by the atmosphere.

The difference in distance you get in a day is negligible.

As FF says, illusion. The distance between the moon and yourself is greater when it is on the horizon than when overhead.

As for monthly tides, there are the spring tides every fortnight which generally have the greatest regular range and are larger than the perigee typically as far as I was aware?

Obviously tides are also affected by the perigee/apogee - but only every couple of months do the two coincide to give the greatest tidal range. At least that’s all I remember from it being explained when we were sailing!