OT - What if the Moon had a blue light on it?

Hi,
This is just an update on a thread I posted many moons ago on the
same subject title (in the interest of brevity, if you'd like to see
what we were talking about, please look at that 2004 thread of the same
name.) Anyway, the weekend before last my astronomy club (Central
Florida Astronomical Society) had a star party at a really dark sky
site (Chiefland Astronomy Village, FL) and there were probably more
than a hundred amateurs there from our and their clubs that weekend.
It just so happened that that weekend the moon was just a thin crescent
a couple of days old, so I was able to have others visually confirm the
blue light at Aristarchus crater. (Please see the old thread to see
why I think it is natural reflected light).

Some people that I told about it joined me and we saw it in 90
mm, 5" and 6" refractors, and in reflectors such as: a restored 6"
Criterion, a hand-made 10" Dobsonian, an 11" goto Schmidt-Cassegrain, a
12" handmade Dobsonian, a 14" goto Celestron, and another big Dob, I
can't recall the diameter but it was probaby ~18" (there were much
bigger scopes there, one was 42" and I got to look through it at Thor's
Helmet, but I didn't get to see the blue light through them :^( as the
moon had set soon after sunset and there was so much else to see! :^)

When looking at the blue light at low power in all of the scopes,
one can see the central pointlike blue'ish light and surrounding glow,
but when looking at it under high power and the higher resolution of a
much bigger mirror, I think I can associate the light with the ejecta
blanket of Aristarchus crater.

What was cooler was that of all the people I had shown this
phenomenon to (most of which were looooong-time super-serious amateurs)
only one of them had known of it before (and I was glad as can be that
somebody else knew about it beforehand!) and many people actually
thanked me for showing it to them (I guess because it is only apparent
when the moon is young, i.e. it's not there most of the time, and those
guys usually don't look at the moon's dark side during thin crescent
phase, but they do so like to look at the esoteric stuff!!) Indeed, the
guy with the 14" thanked me several times that night and made a point
of thanking me again on the morning of day 3, even though we all had
beautiful clear and dark skies and saw so many other cool objects like
Omega Centauri, and naked eyeing galaxies like looking at photo's!
(Imagine that the faint-fuzzies weren't faint!!! Through a 20" Star
Structure scope I saw the connecting lanes in M51 that was so stunning
because of the dark sky! We have had 3 dark sky sites since I've
joined the club, but this one is considerably darker (for the
time-being anyway, Florida is quickly going to be a cement jungle too,
and having lived in NYC myself for 27 years, I just have to say that
Humans are reliably and profoundly stupid creatures! May E.T. have
mercy on us.) Once you get above 20 inches at a really really dark sky
site, the universe is a different place. Indeed, even naked-eye Milky
Way's Saggitarius star clouds in the early morning were so stunning
that I only felt pity for the city-dweller's who haven't ever seen such
awesome beauty. I was wishing at 4 to 5 in the morning that the whole
world could see what I was seeing. I would be a different world.

Thanks Al Aburto for confirming that blue light at Aristarchus
last year for me; it permitted me to have the patience to wait for this
golden opportunity for many others to see it too.

Regards, Jason H.

Jason H. wrote:
Hi,
This is just an update on a thread I posted many moons ago on the
same subject title (in the interest of brevity, if you'd like to see
what we were talking about, please look at that 2004 thread of the same
name.) Anyway, the weekend before last my astronomy club (Central
Florida Astronomical Society) had a star party at a really dark sky
site (Chiefland Astronomy Village, FL) and there were probably more
than a hundred amateurs there from our and their clubs that weekend.
It just so happened that that weekend the moon was just a thin crescent
a couple of days old, so I was able to have others visually confirm the
blue light at Aristarchus crater. (Please see the old thread to see
why I think it is natural reflected light).

Some people that I told about it joined me and we saw it in 90
mm, 5" and 6" refractors, and in reflectors such as: a restored 6"
Criterion, a hand-made 10" Dobsonian, an 11" goto Schmidt-Cassegrain, a
12" handmade Dobsonian, a 14" goto Celestron, and another big Dob, I
can't recall the diameter but it was probaby ~18" (there were much
bigger scopes there, one was 42" and I got to look through it at Thor's
Helmet, but I didn't get to see the blue light through them :^( as the
moon had set soon after sunset and there was so much else to see! :^)

When looking at the blue light at low power in all of the scopes,
one can see the central pointlike blue'ish light and surrounding glow,
but when looking at it under high power and the higher resolution of a
much bigger mirror, I think I can associate the light with the ejecta
blanket of Aristarchus crater.

What was cooler was that of all the people I had shown this
phenomenon to (most of which were looooong-time super-serious amateurs)
only one of them had known of it before (and I was glad as can be that
somebody else knew about it beforehand!) and many people actually
thanked me for showing it to them (I guess because it is only apparent
when the moon is young, i.e. it's not there most of the time, and those
guys usually don't look at the moon's dark side during thin crescent
phase, but they do so like to look at the esoteric stuff!!) Indeed, the
guy with the 14" thanked me several times that night and made a point
of thanking me again on the morning of day 3, even though we all had
beautiful clear and dark skies and saw so many other cool objects like
Omega Centauri, and naked eyeing galaxies like looking at photo's!
(Imagine that the faint-fuzzies weren't faint!!! Through a 20" Star
Structure scope I saw the connecting lanes in M51 that was so stunning
because of the dark sky! We have had 3 dark sky sites since I've
joined the club, but this one is considerably darker (for the
time-being anyway, Florida is quickly going to be a cement jungle too,
and having lived in NYC myself for 27 years, I just have to say that
Humans are reliably and profoundly stupid creatures! May E.T. have
mercy on us.) Once you get above 20 inches at a really really dark sky
site, the universe is a different place. Indeed, even naked-eye Milky
Way's Saggitarius star clouds in the early morning were so stunning
that I only felt pity for the city-dweller's who haven't ever seen such
awesome beauty. I was wishing at 4 to 5 in the morning that the whole
world could see what I was seeing. I would be a different world.

Thanks Al Aburto for confirming that blue light at Aristarchus
last year for me; it permitted me to have the patience to wait for this
golden opportunity for many others to see it too.

Regards, Jason H.


You're most welcome Jason.
The amateurs here in San Diego have a 22 inch reflector at their Tierra
Del Sol site. I used to go there with my uncle, & wife sometimes, but I
haven't been there in a number of years now. I remember showing my wife
the Moon through the 22inch scope. It was something to see her jaw drop
and hear her say wow when she looked at the Moon through that scope.
Some of those craters filled the field of view of the 2 inch eyepiece. I
think that for the first time she realized that the Moon was much more
than she had ever thought before ...
Al

Jason H. wrote:
Hi,
This is just an update on a thread I posted many moons ago on the

(:-))

Good to see a follow up.


[...]
Some people that I told about it joined me and we saw it in 90
mm, 5" and 6" refractors, and in reflectors such as: a restored 6"
Criterion, a hand-made 10" Dobsonian, an 11" goto Schmidt-Cassegrain, a
12" handmade Dobsonian, a 14" goto Celestron, and another big Dob, I
can't recall the diameter but it was probaby ~18" (there were much
bigger scopes there, one was 42" and I got to look through it at Thor's

Wow, quite a collection. My mirror grindings stopped at 2x 4" due to
lack of time...


When looking at the blue light at low power in all of the scopes,
one can see the central pointlike blue'ish light and surrounding glow,
but when looking at it under high power and the higher resolution of a
much bigger mirror, I think I can associate the light with the ejecta
blanket of Aristarchus crater.
[...]

Excellent. Well worth stamping your name on a web page with the details.
Have you any pictures?

Any chance to get spectra of the ejecta?? (Simply reflected light from
the Earth's oceans or perhaps filtering by the ejecta material?)

Mmmm... Or are you seeing some prismatic/refractive effect of sunlight
through the Earth's atmosphere to give blue (penumbra?) rather than the
more easily seen red (umbra?)?


Good stuff. And how long was it, for the astronomer that saw a flash
from a meteor strike on the moon, had to wait for confirmation to
finally get credit? (;-))


Keep searchin',

Regards,
Martin

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In message , Martin 53N 1W
writes


Good stuff. And how long was it, for the astronomer that saw a flash
from a meteor strike on the moon, had to wait for confirmation to
finally get credit? (;-))

If you're referring to Leon Stuart's observation (15 November 1953) it
hasn't been confirmed yet :-(
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc030703.html
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