Ancestors

Toot

Written by Bob Horowitz on 2025-01-14 at 19:17

The moon, rising directly behind one of the spires of St Paul's Catholic Church. Taken from our side deck.

I always assumed this alignment would occur every 28 days. But doing a little bit of poking around on the internet, it seems Earth's tilt shifts the moon's position in the sky on a 18.6 year cycle.

So don't expect another picture like this for a while.

[#]photography

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Descendants

Written by Tomasz Susuł on 2025-01-14 at 19:22

@BobHorowitz It's a good thing it's not a comet ... ;)

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Written by Bob Horowitz on 2025-01-14 at 19:23

@TomaszSusul Yes, we'd be waiting an awfully long time for that to reoccur.

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Written by The Eddie Show 📷 🎧 ❤️ on 2025-01-14 at 19:49

@BobHorowitz

Spectacular shot!

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Written by MFennVT on 2025-01-14 at 19:51

@BobHorowitz Beautiful!

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Written by Bob Horowitz on 2025-01-14 at 19:55

@mfennvt Thanks. I almost tossed this picture because it wasn't quite right. Handheld, 1/6 of a second, taken at a long distance while standing on top of a wobbly chair so it's slightly shaky, and it's also grainy because ISO 8000. But I like the composition and It's a testament to what you can do when you're too lazy to dig out your tripod and remote shutter.

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Written by Mike on 2025-01-14 at 19:53

@BobHorowitz It shifts month to month, too, as the ecliptic moves with the seasons

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Written by Bob Horowitz on 2025-01-14 at 20:02

@sunumbral I'm not surprised.

It's hard to dig through all of the information about moon positions and find one definitive source about all of the positional changes of the moon. The last reference I read said the 18.6 year shift was due to the sun's gravity, while another one said the shift was caused by a wobble in the Earth's axis. There are better sources about sunrise positional shifts than moonrise's.

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