December 9, 2020
Our Daily Moon
Originally published May 22, 2011
image by Maurice Collins, New Zealand
Many nights I receive a full disk image of the Moon from Maurice. David Dench, Dmitry Makolkin and others also often take full disk views, either quick single frames or masterful mosaics. For LPOD these image are difficult to deal with. They are too large to be reproduced full size, and reducing them down to fit a convenient LPOD size - as I did here - makes them too small to appreciate the details. But I think that many of the images aren't really for LPOD but are documentation, often rushed between clouds and family activities, in response to a desire to capture the Moon each day. I am not an imager but I also try to see the Moon every day, just with eyeball if a telescope isn't handy. Perhaps this daily desire to connect to the Moon goes back to prehistory when the Moon was more familiar, more valuable (for light at night) and more important (perhaps as a representation of the mysterious and godly forces of nature). I wonder if we should start a webpage just to share these daily images, not because they are scientifically valuable, but like a talisman. The definition of that term is fitting for the Moon: an object producing apparently magical or miraculous effects.
Chuck Wood
Yesterday's LPOD: Ignoring the Heroes
Tomorrow's LPOD: Old Land, Big Craters, Basin Fill
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