Are You Ready For the Supermoon?

Supermoon!  What's that? 

Stefano Sciarpetti

Well, unless you're totally unconnected to the cyber-world, you've undoubtedly heard that we are going to have a supermoon this Monday.  A supermoon occurs when the positions of the moon and earth are just right so that the moon is closest to us in it's orbit and full at the same time.

The details about the specific geometry can be found at EarthSky and the NASA site, so you can link there to read all about it.  The quick and dirty is that the moon becomes full at about 8:52 AM on November 14th, and will reach perigee – the moon’s closest point to Earth for this month – within an one and one-half hours of that time - ergo, a supermoon.  This one is the largest since 1948. The full moon won’t come this close to Earth again until November 25, 2034.

A supermoon, or perigee full moon can be as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than an apogee full moon. But you might not be able to tell the difference, especially if it's slightly cloudy, or even if you've not looked at the moon before - since there is nothing to compare to.  But, it's worth the effort to check it out, the only thing you need are your pairs of eyes.

When should you look?  Both Sunday and Monday nights would be good (note: weather forecasts for the Maryland area are calling for cloudy skies on Monday.)

As for me, well I'll take a quick look.  But since the moon is a bright 'annoying' orb for us astrophotographers I'll be happy when its all over and I can get back to deep space photography in dark skies!