Night Shift

Tonight, the moon was only visible completely by 9 o'clock. So here is a photo of the moon taken at 9:03 PM.

Stay tuned to check out a photo of the moon in the morning.

I Found The Moon!!!

I found the moon in the sky tonight. It is just a day after a full moon. Here is a photo of the moon at 9:16 PM.

Lens Improvement

So I have my good camera with the 3,000 dollar telephoto lens(thanks, Mom) and I have two pictures for you today.

It was a really cloudy night, as you can see in this picture.

Both pictures were taken at 7:32.  Now that I have the good lens you can expect MUCH better pictures.

Better, Coming Soon...

 Here is a photo of the moon taken at 7:28 PM. Sorry, but you can't see much else.  I will have my better camera lens tomorrow night!

Winter Circle

Here is a photo of the moon taken at 7:25 PM.

If you looked at the sky today, you could see a bright circle of stars surrounding the moon. This is called the Winter circle and its a beautiful sight.

Time Flies

I can't believe how the moon "grown" over the last week. If you look in the sky, you can also see that it has moved due west and is continuing it's path towards a full moon. Jupiter is still in the sky as well as Venus [right above the horizon] but they are nowhere near the moon anymore. Here is a photo of the moon taken at 7:32 PM.

Also, be sure to check out our photo gallery in order to see all the phases of the moon shown on the blog so far.

The Moon and Jupiter

Nothing that interesting tonight. Jupiter and the moon are moving farther and farther away from each other. Here is a photo of the moon and Jupiter taken at 6:04 PM.

Here is a photo of the moon  taken at 6:00 PM.

Pollution

Over the weekend, I had to go to my sisters cheerleading in Las Vegas. (She won, shoutout to HB Storm.) It was my turn to do the moon log, but we ran into some problems.  One, the moon looks different in Las Vegas than it does in Orange County, and two, you can see NOTHING in the Vegas night sky.  Even the moon looks dull:

The reason the Vegas sky is so devoid of stars is because of two reasons.  The first is that the air quality is so low, and the second is the light pollution caused by the Las Vegas strip.  Light is also known as photopollution, and it is excessive artificial light that obscures the night sky.  Light pollution is bad because it obscures the night sky, but also because it has adverse effects on the environment.  Studies have shown that too much exposure to light can cause anxiety in animals and humans.  Excessive exposure to artificial light indoors is shown to cause increased blood pressure up to eight points!  Light pollution also disrupts ecosystems.  It can confuse and change the migration patterns of nocturnal animals.  Also, some spiders avoid light, while others don't mind making their webs on light sources.  Since insects are attracted to light, this gives an advantage to the spiders who build their webs near lamps.  Light pollution is a problem not many people know about, and is being fought by the International Dark-Sky Association.

-Seth