Blue Moon Eclipse

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 ended with a Blue Moon and a partial lunar eclipse, as the second Full Moon of December grazed the Earth's shadow on December 31st. The New Year's Eve Blue Moon eclipse was visible throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and parts of Alaska, captured in this two exposure composite in cloudy skies over Saint Bonnet de Mure, France. Playing across the Moon's southern reaches, the edge of Earth's umbra, or dark central shadow, appears on the right side along with the prominent ray crater Tycho. At maximum eclipse, the umbra covered only about 8 percent of the diameter of the lunar disk. Read More

IYA Daily Podcast feaures Lunar Mark

365 Days of Astronomy
a Daily Podcast of the
International Year of Astronomy

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Title: Selenography: Naming and Mapping the Moon
Podcaster: Mark Tillotson, amateur astronomer, lunar enthusiast, author of Today in Astronomy blog, member of the Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society and IYA_US team member.

Links: Today in Astronomy: http://todayinastronomy.blogspot.com/
Lunar Mark: http://lunarmark.blogspot.com/
The Astronomy Compendium: http://astronomycompendium.wikispaces.com/
LVAAS: http://www.lvaas.net/

Description: It all started with the second person who created a lunar map. Naming features on the Moon has had a long and contentious history. The various lunar maps, sketches and images produced during the last four centuries show how difficult it can be to be accurate and consistent in lunar nomenclature. Amateur astronomer 'Lunar Mark' Tillotson talks about some of the major selenographers and the people who are honored with a lunar feature.

Bio: Mark Tillotson is an engineer and amateur astronomer living in Pennsylvania. He is interested in the Moon, the history of astronomy and science in general. Mark is the author of two blogs, Today in Astronomy and Lunar Mark, and created the Astronomy Compendium; a wiki-spaces site designed as a collection of information about the people, places and events that shaped the science of Astronomy into the form we know today. He is the Star Party coordinator at the Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society and a communications team member for IYA2009 US; posting updates on Facebook as IYA Cosmos and on Twitter as IYA.

Check out the Buzz HERE.

The First Eye on the Moon

Composite lunar drawing by English
astronomer Thomas Harriot, 1612 or 1613.

Technology hurried from theory to practice, allowing a color television camera to finally, faithfully show a live broadcast of Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell complete the moonwalks of Apollo 14 in 1971 is today in the hands of most cellphone users. It is taken for granted, enough to have become a neglected extra feature. The Charged-Coupled Device (CCD) just isn't as celebrated as the light bulb, for example, or the telescope. But there was a time when amateur astronomers couldn't apply photographic techniques and computer-guided clock-drives to take photographs of the Moon superior to that of the largest institutionally-owned telescopes of the World.

Just 400 years ago the telescope, as a concept employed to view the sky, was recorded for the first time. Like so many other things lost in the mists of time, what we call the telescope today was part of the vast accumulated technology of China, and was brought to Europe during the late Era of Exploration and Imperialism by the Dutch. The positioning of lens to refract and magnify a distant and small segment of the distant line of sight was likely to have been stumbled upon countless times in countless ways over the centuries.

Who was it, then, who first trained two lens fixed perpendicular along the line of sight between the human eye and the Moon, foe example?

This International Year of Astronomy 2009 has been set to remember Galileo Galilei, the long-celebrated favorite of Pope Urban VIII and credited with "inventing the telescope in 1609. History is often lost, or distorted, in translation, as misconceptions go on to be repeated long enough to eventually become "fact." Galileo is clearly worthy of celebration, but hardly for being the first astronomer or as the inventor of the telescope.

Astronomy may, in fact, have been first distinguished from astrology by Abraham, who 1st Century historian Josephus described as having coming out from "Ur of the Chaldees" after strong disagreement with fellow members of the astrological priesthood of Sumer (modern day Iraq), early in the 2nd Millennium B.C. (4000 years ago).

And according to today's Guardian Science Blog posting "Did an Englishman beat Galileo to the first moon observation," more than the politics of Galileo is being celebrated during this IYA2009.

"Thomas Harriot, a wealthy but publicity-shy astronomer and mapmaker, produced a series of exquisite lunar drawings, one of which is dated 26 July 1609, pre-dating Galileo's much-celebrated observations of the moon by six months."

"A composite drawing of the moon dating to 1612 or 1613 is considered by some experts to mark the birth of modern cartography. The lunar drawings by Harriot will form part of an exhibition at West Sussex Record Office in Chichester in July to mark the International Year of Astronomy."

Read more HERE.