Monday, June 29, 2009

Waxing or Waning? (180/365)

2009 06 29 IMG_6870 
"Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;"


Walter De La Mare (1873-1956), British poet. Silver (l. 1-2). FaPO-. Favorite Poems Old and New. Helen Ferris, ed. (1957) Doubleday & Company.

TIME:  8:42 PM
PLACE:  Southwestern night sky
SUBJECT:  Moon

Where did this Monday go?  It felt like I accomplished nothing that I really wanted to today.  I did get some errands run and made spaghetti and meatballs with garlic cheese bread and a salad for dinner.  But the next thing I know, it was time for MonkeyBoy's 8pm ball game.  They played a challenging team tonight and lost 14-9.  Bummer.  But, it was a beautiful evening, with mild temperatures and a breeze.  The moon was lovely as well.   I'll be able to see it change the next 2 nights as MB has another 8pm game tomorrow and a 6pm game on Wednesday.  Got to make up all those rainouts!

BTW, waxing and waning are used to describe the moon as it looks between its full and new phases. Waxing is when the part of the moon that you can see is increasing (getting bigger) while waning is when the part of the moon that you can see is decreasing (getting smaller).  Tonight's moon is First Quarter - which means that 1/2 of it is illuminated.  The next phase is called "Waxing Gibbous" which means the lighted part will be greater than half.  The next Full Moon will occur on July 7th.

4 comments:

Michelle said...

Holy cow, that shot is fantastic.

Susan said...

What a beautiful shot! I couldn't even begin to take this type of clear night picture (even with a free assistant). HA!

Mari said...

That is a wonderful shot! I would never be able to get that.

bentonflocke said...

OMG this moon shot is stunning!

How did you do that? I´ll never get such a perfect picture.

What lens and setups you have used?