Category: Moon - Ascension Now

A LUMPY RING AROUND THE BLUE MOON:

2/6/2026

Not only was the Blue Moon not blue, it was surrounded by a lumpy ring of bright orange. "It was the most beautiful pollen corona that I've ever seen," says Matti Helin, who photographed the phenomenon from Finland on May 31st:

"The shape of the halo and the yellow dust on everything suggests that this was caused by pine pollen," says Helin.
That's 100% correct. Right now, the male cones of Finnish pines are releasing their yellow dust into the atmosphere--a natural part of their reproductive cycle. Every tree produces millions of grains because they rely on wind to deliver the pollen to the female cones. It is a very inefficient to have sex, but a great way to make "pollen coronas."
Coronas are rings of light that surround the sun or Moon when their light is scattered from small particles. Pollen grains are excellent scatterers while they are suspended in mid-air.
Pine pollen coronas are elliptical and lumpy because the underlying grains are, too. This photo of pine pollen seen through a microscope shows what's going on:

They look like Mickey Mouse hats--a result of air sacs that help carry them in the wind. These align the grains so that the unruly swarm can scatter light coherently, encoding their individual structures into the shape of the overall corona.
Pollen halos around the sun are lumpy, too. Here are some recent examples: from Mikko Peussa of Nousiainen, Finland; from Andreas Steinbach of Rödeby, Karlskrona, Sweden.
https://spaceweather.com/

THE SUPER BLUE MOON:

29/8/2023

This week, a quirky mixture of science, hyperbole and folklore will cause millions of people to go outside and stare at the sky. We're talking about the Super Blue Moon. This is what it will look like:

Above: A "supermoon" over Cape Cod on Oct. 15, 2016. Credit: Chris Cook.

The Super Blue Moon on Wednesday evening, Aug. 30th, will look a lot like an ordinary full Moon. However, there are three things that make it special.
First, the science: This week's full Moon is the biggest and brightest of 2023. Astronomers call it a "perigee moon." The Moon's orbit is an ellipse with one side ("perigee") about 50,000 km closer than the other ("apogee"). Full Moons that occur on the perigee side of the Moon's orbit are extra big and bright. This week's Moon will become full within 9 hours of perigee, making it the closest full Moon of the year (357,181 km away).
Next, the hyperbole: About 10 years ago, many science journalists and even some astronomers started calling perigee Moons "supermoons." A supermoon is 8% bigger and 15% brighter than an average full Moon. Would you call Clark Kent "super" if he were only 8% faster and 15% stronger than an average human? No, but let's roll with it! People love super things.
Finally, the folklore: You've probably heard the expression "Once in a blue Moon." It means "rare." Modern folklore provides a more precise definition. When there are two full Moons in a calendar month, the second one is "blue." Such blue moons come along every 2 to 3 years. August already had one full Moon on Aug. 2nd; now it is about to have another (blue) one on Aug. 30th.

By the way, the Moon won't literally turn blue. Most blue Moons are pale gray when they are high in the sky, or orange when they are rising and setting. If you actually see blue, it could mean that a volcano is erupting or a wildfire is nearby. Run!
In summary, this week's Super Blue Moon will be about 15% bigger and more gorgeous than an average moon. Go out after sunset on Aug. 30th, look east, and watch it rise into the darkening summer sky.
https://spaceweather.com/

TODAY'S RARE HYBRID SOLAR ECLIPSE:

20/4/2023

"It was a brilliant beautiful eclipse," reports eyewitness Eliot Herman. "We observed on a small island in the Montebello group off the coast of Australia very close to the center line." This is what he saw:

"Paul Maley made the arrangements and got the permissions," he adds. "There were only 15 of us, and it was really special to have the island to ourselves so far from civilization."
Maley was taking pictures alongside Herman. "This was my 82nd solar eclipse," Maley says. "At our location the eclipse lasted only 55 seconds, but it was spectacular. The sky was super clear following the recent passage of cyclone Ilsa." The exceptional transparency allowed him to capture several red prominences around the rim of the sun:

Now a marine conservation reserve, the islands were the site of three British atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in 1952 and 1956. Herman brought a Geiger counter to their observation site. "I tested a bunch of rocks and fragments but nothing was 'hot,'" he says. "The Montebellos are quite isolated. It was remarkable to have a chance to be here."
Today's hybrid eclipse was the first in almost 10 years, making it a rare event. Hybrid eclipses are a mixture of two types: annular and total. This one began as an annular eclipse over the Indian Ocean, transitioned into a total eclipse over western Australia, and ended as an annular eclipse over the South Pacific: map.
www.spaceweather.com

ONE DAY UNTIL THE SOLAR ECLIPSE:

19/4/2023

Tomorrow, April 20th, a rare hybrid solar eclipse will sweep across Australia and Indonesia. Eclipse chaser Mohamad Sol couldn't wait. One day early, he snapped this picture of the Moon from inside the path of totality:

"Just the day before the total solar eclipse, I observed this fabulous moonrise from Exmouth, Australia, where the eclipse will be total on April 20th," says Sol.
A hybrid eclipse is a mixture of two types: an annular eclipse and a total eclipse. The difference is the size of the Moon. During the annular phase, the Moon is slightly too small to cover the entire solar disk, resulting in a "ring of fire." During the total phase, the whole sun is covered, revealing the sun's ghostly corona.

Tomorrow's eclipse begins as an annular eclipse over the Indian Ocean, transitions into a total eclipse as it moves over western Australia, then becomes an annular eclipse again over the South Pacific. The last time such a hybrid eclipse occurred was Nov. 3, 2013.
Outside the narrow red path (shown above), the eclipse will be partial--neither annular nor total. The sun will still be very bright, but shaped like a crescent as the Moon takes a bite out of the solar disk. Observers in this broad region can look directly at the eclipsed sun using safe solar eclipse glasses.
www.spaceweather.com

SUNSET SKY SHOW:

24/2/2023

The 3-day mutual conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon witnessed by sunset sky watchers around the world is over. Here is how it ended on Feb. 23rd:

"The Moon rose above the planetary duo of Jupiter and Venus to create a beautiful line in the western sky," says Petr Horálek, who took the picture from Thoddoo, Maldives. "Cirrus clouds appeared and beautifully magnified the dramatic colors of sunset. It was a very romantic moment."
The Moon is exiting, but the show's not over. Venus and Jupiter are still converging. At closest approach on March 1st, they will be just 0.5 degrees apart--a beautiful pairing and one of the best astrophoto-ops of 2023. Look west at sunset.
https://spaceweather.com/

COMING SOON, A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE MOON: 26 May 2021

29/4/2021

Mark your calendar. On May 26th, the full Moon will pass through the shadow of Earth producing a total lunar eclipse. For 14 and a half minutes, the disk of the Moon will turn orange--the same color as the core of our planet's shadow.

The eclipse will be visible from Antarctica, Australia, parts of Asia and the Americas: World Map. In the USA, the best place to be is near the west coast, where the eclipse will unfold in its entirety before sunrise. The low-hanging Moon will look extra big and beautiful because of the Moon Illusion. On the east coast, the eclipse will not be visible at all: USA Map.
www.spaceweather.com

LUNAR LIBRATION

3/1/2021

Did you see last week's full Moon? It was unique. Why? Because no two full Moons are exactly alike. To prove it, Paolo Bardelli of Sumirago, Italy, photographed the last 12 full Moons and stacked the pictures to highlight their differences:

"From each full Moon photo, I cut out a slice, then placed the slices side by side," explains Bardelli. "The Moons of Jan. 10th and June 5th are dark because they are taken from shots of the penumbral eclipses that occurred in those days."
None of the slices are the same. Some are wide, others narrow. Each one faces in a slightly different direction. These differences are a result of the Moon's motion around its tilted, elliptical orbit. Each full Moon occurs at a different point in that orbit, and so we see it from a slightly different distance and angle.
Scroll up and down past the slices; they seem to rock back and forth. The rocking motions are called libration; because of them we can see 59% of the Moon's surface rather than the 50% you might have learned in school. So pay attention to the next full Moon (Jan 28th). It's as unique as you are.
www.spaceweather.com

LUNAR PARHELIC CIRCLE

2/1/2021

A parhelic circle is an unforgettable sight. Thin and pale, it circles the zenith in a majestic arc, always keeping the same distance above the horizon. On Dec. 27th, Göran Strand of Handöl, Sweden, saw a parhelic circle but, strangely, the sun was nowhere around. This parhelic circle was passing through the Moon:

"It has been a long time since I saw a lunar halo, and I can't remember the last time I saw one with such a prominent parhelic circle," says Strand. "It was an amazing sight."
The parhelic circle is not the ring around the Moon; that's a 22-degree halo. Instead it is the almost-horizontal arc cutting through the Moon. The rest of the parhelic circle was too big to fit in the field of view of Strand's camera.
Parhelic circles are formed by sunlight reflecting from the vertical faces of ice crystals--millions of them floating in thin cirrus clouds spread almost evenly across the sky. In this case, bright moonlight + cirrus clouds performed the same trick.
Note: Because this circle is caused by moonlight rather than sunlight, it is most correctly called a "parselenic circle."
www.spaceweather.com

What is the Da Vinci Glow?

25/4/2020

May 16, 2018 / Dr.Tony PhillipsFive hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci proposed an outlandish theory explaining why the Moon’s surface glows after lunar nightfall. Turns out, his idea was correct. The Da Vinci Glow–also known as “Earthshine”–makes the entire lunar disk visible even when the sunlit fraction is just a few percent.
For much of human history, people marveled at the faint image of the full Moon inside the arms of the crescent. Where did it come from? No one knew until the 16th century when Leonardo figured it out. He realized that sunlight reflected from Earth lit up the lunar night.

Da Vinci’s sketch of Earthshine in 1510
vs. Italian astronomer Riccardo Di Nasso’s photo of Earthshine in 2006.

Visualizing this in the 1500s required a wild kind of imagination. No one had ever been to the Moon and looked “up” at Earth. Most people didn’t even know that Earth orbited the sun. Copernicus’ sun-centered theory of the solar system wasn’t published until 1543, twenty-four years after Leonardo died.
Wild imagination was one thing Leonardo had in abundance. His notebooks are filled with sketches of flying machines, army tanks, scuba gear and other fantastic devices centuries ahead of their time.
In Leonardo’s Codex Leicester, circa 1510, there is a page entitled “Of the Moon: No Solid Body is Lighter than Air.” He states his belief that the “ghostly glow” is due to sunlight bouncing off Earth’s oceans and, in turn, hitting the Moon. 500 years later, we know that Earth’s clouds (not oceans) do most of the reflecting; but that is a quibble. Leonardo understood the basics well enough.
Go outside and look at the next crescent Moon. The Da Vinci Glow is waiting….
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/05/16/what-is-the-da-vinci-glow/

The Moon Mystery, Solar Flare, Cosmic Scalability

12/3/2020

Suspicious0bservers: Daily Sun, Earth and Science News

Today's Featured Links:
Slime Mold, Cosmic Web? -
https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/03/cosmic-... -
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04393.pdf
New Moon Hypothesis Need: https://news.unm.edu/news/new-researc...
Solar Forecast: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04563.pdf
Geomag Max in Mesopotamia: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Amazon to Disappear? https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/researc... …
Probably not: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ima...

JUPITER-MOON CONJUNCTION-TONIGHT:

19/5/2019

Awake at midnight? Go outside and look southeast. The Moon and Jupiter are having a bright conjunction in the constellation Ophiuchus, only a few degrees apart. Enjoy the show!
Sky maps: May 19, 20.
www.spaceweather.com

SOLAR ECLIPSE THIS WEEKEND:

10/8/2018

The Moon is about to take a bite out of the sun. On Saturday, August 11th, there will be a partial solar eclipse visible from locations around the Arctic Circle and across much of Asia. During the 3+ hour event, as much as 73% of the solar disk will be covered. Selected cities in the eclipse zone include Moscow (2.1% coverage), Oslo (4.8%), Raykjavik (20%), Tromso (29%), and Seoul (35%). www.spaceweather.com

TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE MOON:

28/7/2018

On July 27, 2018, the Moon passed through the shadow of our planet, producing the longest lunar eclipse of the century. The face of the Moon turned red for 1 hour and 43 minutes--an event visible from every continent except North America. Anthony Ayiomamitis photographed the eclipse from Athens, Greece:

"We were very fortunate to have pristine skies for this evenings longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century," says Ayiomamitis.

In the composite image, above, Anthony sandwiched an image of the all-red totally eclipsed Moon between images of the Moon just before and after totality. Note the fringes of pale blue in those outer Moons.

The blue color is caused by ozone. Atmospheric scientist Richard Keen of the University of Colorado explains: "Most of the light illuminating the Moon passes through the stratosphere, and is reddened by scattering. However, light passing through the upper stratosphere penetrates the ozone layer, which absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer." This creates a turquoise-blue border around the red.
www.spaceweather.com

LUNAR ECLIPSE AND MARTIAN CONJUNCTION:

26/7/2018

Friday, July 27th, is a big night for astronomy. First, Mars will be at opposition--directly opposite the sun and making a 15-year close approach to Earth. Second, Mars and the Moon will be in conjunction--less than 10 degrees apart. Third, the Moon will pass through the shadow of Earth, producing the longest lunar eclipse in a century--visible everywhere except North America. What a night! Tune into live webcasts from Israel and Belgium.
www.spaceweather.com

Super Blue Blood Moon

3/2/2018

A Super Blue Blood Moon rises over Çamlica Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey, 31 January 2018