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Jove, thou regent of the skies.


It's morning here in Tasmania, but as you can see, I step out the front door and here is the moon. Henry pointed it out to me. Well, actually he first thought that it was a ball of some description, but he soon realised his error.

Once we had that sorted, he wanted to know what the moon was doing out in the morning. You see, he's been indoctrinated by thousands, nay, millions of children's books that assure him that the moon only comes out at night, and then buggers off during the day.

Because I never smoked cigarettes, I lack the requisite scientific skills to fully understand, let alone explain, the whole notion of crescents, quarters, gibbons blah blah blah

I do know that it involves the reflection of sunlight, the phases of the moon, and that in a nutshell, parts of the Earth can see the reflected sunlight off the moon while that portion also faces the sun. Hence Henry and I can see the moon during the day.

Or maybe it’s got something to do with magical elves.

I can’t remember now.

Comments

Anonymous said…
That's a brilliant picture.

I have tried so hard to figure out the phases of the moon. I can cope with new and full and crescent, it's the other one that does my head in. Just don't get it at all, how the sun can reflect in that particular shape.
Kris McCracken said…
Jackie, I was trying to explain it this morning and came up with a good analogy.

If the sun is behind you, you can hold out you watch face and generate a reflection of the sun off the watch (I used to do this to annoy the teacher in school).

BUT, if my head is blocking enough of the sun's glare, there isn't enough light to generate the reflection.

So imagine that the watch face is the Moon, and my head is the Earth. Just like the Moon in the day, the watch is still there, but there isn't enough light to generate the reflected ray of light.

If any scientists are out there, am I right or wrong?
KL said…
A lovely shot. Errr....if you please do not mind Kris, I can explain it simply in this way: the moon phases that we see are due to the different angles of the moon, earth and sun as the moon orbits around the earth. As the earth rotates, we have night and days - a part of the earth is lighted by sunlight and the other part is not. Same thing is also happening to the moon. Part of it is in darkness and a part of it is in light. So, you have to imagine E M S and everything orbiting. Depending upon how the three are aligned, we will see the full sunlighted part of the moon or the dark shadowed part of the moon or a mixture of them (which create the various phases).

I don't think I have been able to explain it properly :-(.

We can see the moon because it is illuminated by the sun. In physics, we say that we can see anything because object reflects light; if it doesn't, then we can't see. That's where the word reflection comes into play. The sun does not reflect anything in any particular shape. The shapes are all due to movement.

One can try this experiment: take a lamp or a torch. Switch it on. Then in front of it, move two balls along orbits. Also, while moving them around orbits, rotate them around a tilted axis. Depending upon the tilted axis, the position of the light speed, distances, etc, one can imagine and see how various parts of two balls get into darkness and lightness, creating various shapes.

Errr..sorry for such a long comment :-S.
Kris McCracken said…
KL, out of interest, do you smoke?
Doc said…
Buy an apple, an orange, and a grape. Position the orange about five and a half inches from the apple. Now set the grape close to the apple. The orange is the sun. The apple is the Earth, and the grape is the moon.

Now explain it the best you can and feed the fruit to the child.

They need their vitimin C.

Doc
Doc said…
My dad used to call this a "ghost" moon. That really isn't any help, but I felt obliged to pass it along.

Doc
Chris Wolf said…
Hey Kris, If your son is young, it may help to make it cute for now. I like the story of the sun and moon chasing each other around the earth. Sometimes they almost catch each other, like playing "tag". See if he has a story about who was "it".
The fish jokes were blue, (whale or marlin!) Best I could do as a first timer.
Ann said…
Just beautiful. Can't get my head around the explanations, I'd rather just look and enjoy.
Kurt said…
What KL said.

The phases of the moon are not caused by the earth getting in the way of the sun's light - that's an eclipse.

Take a look at one of those models they make to explain it, and it all becomes clear.
Kris McCracken said…
Doc, I shall try that, but I don't expect the fruit to last very long during the demonstration!
Kris McCracken said…
Chris, I imagine that he will claim that it has something to do with Elmo...
Squirrel said…
great shot.


how strange that I almost bought the Frayn book today that you're currently reading. How is it?
Kris McCracken said…
Kurt, but surely the reasoning is the same. You don't see the stars during the day, but they’re still there. The stars don’t go anywhere; it is just that the sky is too bright. Sunlight scatters around in the air and makes the sky look bright blue. The only reason that we can see the moon is because the sun reflects off of it; it doesn’t have a light source of its own.

I can’t see what else would cause the relative brightness (or otherwise) of the moon other than the placement of the Earth. The sun doesn’t have a dimmer, does it?

I need a smoke...
Kris McCracken said…
Squirrel, it's a good read. I'm halfway through and enjoying it. It's obviously aged a bit, but it stands up very well.
Dina said…
I'll go with the elf explanation.
Beautiful blue for that big white moon.
Kris McCracken said…
Dina, I got another good shot of it again yesterday morning, but have saved that one for Henry.
Susie of Arabia said…
This is an amazing shot - you must have a fantastic zoom!
Kris McCracken said…
Susie, I could have had a closer shot had I had a tripod. AND I was holding a twenty kilo Henry while taking it!
Anonymous said…
Non scientific explanation is; smoke and mirrors. How else would it happen? For the academics amongst us, this is of course is tongue in cheek.
Anonymous said…
Oh, yeah, I'd almost forgotten the Elmo factor. This however could take a couple of lifetimes to explain, so I will leave it with the smoke and mirrors.
Anonymous said…
This is an absolutely beautiful picture.

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