APOD: Red Moon Rising (2011 Dec 16)

[APOD Robot]

Red Moon Rising

Explanation: This surreal, wintry scene is a composite picture recorded on December 10 as the Moon rose behind the Zagros Mountains of Iran. A total lunar eclipse was already in progress. The image combines nearly 500 successive frames taken over 1.5 hours beginning in twilight as the eclipsed Moon steadily climbed above the rugged landscape. The reddened lunar disk and deep blue twilight make for a striking contrast, yet the contrasting colors have the same root cause. The eclipsed Moon is red because the Earth's umbral shadow is suffused with a faint red light. The ruddy illumination is from all the reddened sunsets and sunrises, as seen from a lunar perspective. But the sunsets and sunrises are reddened because the Earth's atmosphere scatters blue light more strongly than red, creating the twilight sky's dim, blue glow.

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[geckzilla]

Dwecember?

(click big image, look lower right)

[Beyond]

Dwight you are, geckzilla. As for the APOD, I've seen sticks that look like that, but they weren't red.

[Ann]

Oshin Zakarian, who made this image, may or may not speak a lot of English, but it clearly isn't his mother tongue. It's so easy to make mistakes when you are juggling a foreign language... I can sympathize.

He has, on the other hand, created a rather spectacular Moon and sky image. I'm impressed. Thank you, Oshin.

Ann

[Koninda]

And here I thought this was a picture of a particularly large meteor streaking towards the earth! Your explanation will allow me to sleep easier tonight.

[sea_bee_ay]

I think the first posted comment here misses the point of APOD completely. It is unbecoming to make such a petty comment, sardonically or otherwise. I would have no idea how to write any of the months of the year in Persian myself, I wish I was that clever, and so I would like to applaud the photographer for both his technical and linguistic abilities. In my opinion the image is original and thought provoking and, therefore, everything an APOD should aspire to be. Thank you and goodbye.

[nstahl]

It is a striking image and a lot of work or else some respectable expertise or both. I agree it's a very good APOD.

[geckzilla]

Hey, it won't ever get corrected if no one points it out!

[owlice]

It's clearly a typo; Oshin's English is excellent.

You can see more (amazing, fabulous, gorgeous) images from him in the post here.

[orin stepanek]

Interesting APOD; I liked it!

[xuxa]

is there a "simple" way 2 post a pic to this site?
its not on line but in my docs folder..maybe an email addy i could submit it 2?

thx

[Ann]

Right, geckzilla and owlice, I stand corrected. The spelling mistake must be a typo. And geckzilla, you're right, too: If no one points out the typos you've made, you may never correct them.

Then again, the typo queen is me, so I still sympathize!

Ann

[Tszabeau]

Where are the arcs, normally, seen in astronomical timelapse? How do orbiting bodies create straight lines as depicted in this pic? For example, yesterday's APOD.

[sajy]

What are the thin white lines running parallel to the images of the moon?

[geckzilla]

Day to day typos are fine. It's the ones that end up in important places like APODs that must be smitten.

[owlice]

And smitten it has been; the replacement will show up shortly.

[Chris Peterson]

Where are the arcs, normally, seen in astronomical timelapse? How do orbiting bodies create straight lines as depicted in this pic? For example, yesterday's APOD.

Click to view full size image

Stars along the celestial equator travel in a straight line, with stars north or south arcing around the north and south poles, respectively. During this eclipse, the Moon was only 22° from the celestial equator, so its path (and that of the stars around it) were not all that curved to begin with. In addition, this image was made at a long focal length, and therefore a narrow field of view (as seen by the fairly large apparent size of the actually small Moon). When you zoom in on the arc of a circumpolar object, the curvature gets smaller. So looking at only 1.5 hours of motion (22.5°) near the celestial equator simply doesn't produce very obvious arcing. It is there, however, if you look closely.

Besides these matters, there is the issue of how the spherical sky gets mapped onto a flat sensor when you make an image. Here again, field of view is important, as well as where in the sky you are centered, and the optical details of your lens.

[Chris Peterson]

What are the thin white lines running parallel to the images of the moon?

Stars.

[zloq]

Day to day typos are fine. It's the ones that end up in important places like APODs that must be smitten.

I don't mind obvious typos and grammar slips, but I think conceptual and quantitative errors in the APOD caption itself should be fixed with high priority. I have noticed a focus here on fixing errors of grammar and semantics, while mistakes directly pertinent to astronomical content remain uncorrected. Recent examples are: Factor of ten in W5 Pillar image scale (2000 instead of 200 ly), factor of at least two in light echo size (6 instead of >12 ly diameter), and the jupiter animation where the caption encourages people to see cloud motion in what is actually a static image being spun 360 degrees. Them three aint been smitten. I'm not sure what the mechanism is to get such captions corrected - but the procedure in place appears to view it more as a writing exercise rather than an accurate presentation of scientific information.

zloq

[geckzilla]

Oh, just send them an email. Their addresses are on the bottom of this page. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html

[zloq]

Oh, just send them an email.

Thanks - I will. I wasn't sure who had write permission on the captions and how the process worked. I guess I'll find out.

zloq

[moonstruck]

Very nice. Thanks, Oshin.

[bystander]

It's clearly a typo; Oshin's English is excellent.

You can see more (amazing, fabulous, gorgeous) images from him in the post here.

And at TWAN.

[Half Slow]

You can see more (amazing, fabulous, gorgeous) images from him in the post here.[/quote]
Wow! What a great gallery of images. Choosing between them must have been quite a trial!

[saturn2]

Nearly 500 seccessive frames taken over 1.5 hours
Many work Congratulations