[QUOTE=philmoore;153216]Jeff, when did you take that picture? It looks like it was taken a couple of days before full. We got clouded out here in western Oregon last night, and we are getting snow at the moment. Unfortunately, tonight is also supposed to be the peak of the Geminid meteor shower.[/QUOTE]

You are right, that one was of 2 days before the full moon. This one isn't quite as good but was last night on the full moon.

Jef.

[quote=Jeff Gilchrist;153229]You are right, that one was of 2 days before the full moon. This one isn't quite as good but was last night on the full moon.

Jef.[/quote]
As I just said - comparatively featureless.
Lighting can be critical in photography.

[QUOTE=Jeff Gilchrist;153229]You are right, that one was of 2 days before the full moon. This one isn't quite as good but was last night on the full moon.

Jef.[/QUOTE]If you look carefully, you'll see it's slightly after full moon. The craters on the leading limb of the moon are well defined; those on the other limb are not.

Paul

[URL]http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16392-weekend-moon-will-be-biggest-of-the-year.html[/URL]

Perhaps some of us may have better viewing conditions than we did last month.

I was lucky enough to be at the Grand Canyon Saturday night for this full moon- See attached.

Norm

It reached perigee on Saturday night and was full on Sunday.
That may explain why your nice photo shows the moon before sunset.

Nice photo, Norm!

- - -

Photo also shows that the practically-full Moon near the horizon is actually of small angular size, not at all looming as seemingly large as it may appear to us when we view that situation first-hand. (Google "moon illusion".)

[quote=Spherical Cow;158514]I was lucky enough to be at the Grand Canyon Saturday night for this full moon- See attached.

Norm[/quote]
Nice photo! If you don't mind, I would like to print that out to put on our wall. If you have a larger resolution perhaps you could email it to r e s p o n s e - a t - t h e m i d d l e h o u s e dot co dot uk

(We have an area of wall reserved for nice photos like this.)

Thanks
Chris

[quote=davieddy;158532]That may explain why your nice photo shows the moon before sunset.[/quote]
The alternative/additional explanation is that the plane of the moon's
orbit is 5 degrees from the ecliptic (earth/sun orbit)

A few years ago I derived a formula for the precession of the
Earth's axis of rotation due to the torque exerted by the sun
on the oblate spheroid.
(Much more instructive than googling if you're up to it)
It involved the earth's moments of inertia,
and angular velocity. It came up with ~25000 years which is apparently
about right. I was was especially chuffed when I treated the moon's orbit
as a ring of radius 250,000 miles and the formula predicted that it
precessed in about 18 years.

I dont know where the intersection of the moon's orbit with the ecliptic
is wrt to the perigee ATM.

I have failed to calculate changes in the orientation of perigee however:(

David

[QUOTE=Flatlander;158540]Nice photo! If you don't mind, I would like to print that out to put on our wall. If you have a larger resolution perhaps you could email it to r e s p o n s e - a t - t h e m i d d l e h o u s e dot co dot uk

(We have an area of wall reserved for nice photos like this.)

Thanks
Chris[/QUOTE]

Sure- the high resolution version will be on its way in a couple of hours. The Canyon is a tremendous place for photography- it's good thing I had borrowed my son's nice digital camera, or I would have gone broke buying film.

Norm

[quote=Flatlander;158540]Nice photo! If you don't mind, I would like to print that out to put on our wall. If you have a larger resolution perhaps you could email it to r e s p o n s e - a t - t h e m i d d l e h o u s e dot co dot uk

(We have an area of wall reserved for nice photos like this.)

Thanks
Chris[/quote]

The Middle House? I thought that was a pub in Mayfield.