Thursday 4 December 2014

Upside down Moon in Australia

Here's Grasmoor with the Moon on Sunday afternoon. During the walk I was asked how this could be the same Moon that is seen in Australia or New Zealand. I know that it has to be but that it will not be visible to them at the same time that it is visible to us. The rotation of the Earth brings us past the Moon and away again, then bringing them past the Moon. So I emailed friends in Sydney and in New Zealand asking for photographs. I got a surprise this afternoon looking at the photographs. If you enlarge my photograph, you'll notice that the right hand side is lit. It's a half Moon. By the time I received the photographs, the phase had moved on to 3/4 Moon, but look carefully at the picture below from Sydney and you'll notice that it is the left hand side that is lit up, not the right. So from Australia the Moon does appear to be upside down. Wow! There'll be more on this when I've done some thinking.