Re: Super Bright Moon

Ron Force (rforce@moscow.com)
Sun, 19 Dec 1999 09:59:08 -0800


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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This from CNN. Ever notice how facts take all the fun out of life?
<snip>
Sky and Telescope magazine reports on its Web site that people have been
sending e-mail and faxes insisting that the combination of closeness to
Earth and the winter solstice will make next Wednesday's full moon the
brightest in more than a century.

Not so, says Roger W. Sinnott, associate editor of the magazine.

Approximately the same combination of things happened in December 1991,
and it was very close to the same in December 1980. Furthermore, the
full moon passed nearer to the Earth in 1930 and 1912 than in this year,
Sky & Telescope says.

"This is a cool combination of things and the poet in me loves it," Sten
Oldenwald, an astronomer who works for Raytheon at the Goddard Space
Flight Center in Maryland, said in an interview Thursday. "But it is not
particularly rare."

The winter solstice, which occurs when the tilt of the Earth's axis puts
the sun directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, comes every December. It
marks the first day of winter. Oldenwald said it is not unusual for the
full moon to come within 24 hours of the solstice. Perigee, when the
moon is closest to the Earth, also happens quite often in December, he
said.

"About every 10 years or so you will get approximately this
combination," he said. "It will happen five to seven times in a
lifetime." <snip>

--
Ron Force    rforce@moscow.com
Moscow, Idaho