Observation 3.4

Waxing Gibbous

The Moon looks like the Sun!

Date: February 9, 2014
Time: 9:14pm - 9:48

Observation:
Boy, am I glad that it is clear outside today! Just yesterday the night sky was just covered in clouds. Well, today when I went out to record what I saw in the sky, I couldn't see many stars in the sky.

Why?

Well that's because the Moon is a Waxing Gibbous! The Moon is big enough and therefore bright enough to only allow some of the brightest stars appear in the sky. If you haven't noticed before, my pervious pictures of the constellations were taken when the Moon was at a smaller phase or was not visible or where I was at the time. So, unfortunately I was not able to record any new constellations. However, in the last photo you can see that you can still see a lot of the constellations such as Orion and Canis Major and Lepus.

I know I have only been showing really one side of the night sky, and the only reason for that is that I haven't really gotten the grasp of that side. I do have a map of the constellations for each season (this season would still be considered as winter. Yes it is still winter for all you Southerners) however, when you try looking at the placement of the constellations in the actual sky, it can be quite difficult. Sometimes a constellation will be higher than you thought it would be or more to one side than the other. But I guess that is just the challenge.

To this day, I am still amazed on how far we have gotten with technology in that we are able to take pictures of the Moon with so much detail! I truly hope that all these things will amaze you, but know that all that we have is nothing compared to the complexity of our solar system; at least that's what I think. Well, see you next week!