Tag Archives: The Moon

Lessons learned trying to live-stream an eclipse

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Some months back, the Astronomical Society of South Africa (ASSA) decided use the upcoming partial annular solar eclipse to promote astronomy in South Africa, and perhaps drum up a few new members for ASSA. Now ASSA has decades of experience with public outreach, but they wanted to try something new: video.  My brief, as a committee volunteer, was to help them to live-stream an eclipse.  Overall, we felt we’d succeeded in the end, but there were definitely some lessons worth learning. … Continue reading →

Will the Blood Moon harm my unborn baby?

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Dear Urban Astronomer I am pregnant, and am worried that all these Blood Moons could harm my baby. I have asked around in my community, but everybody has their own scary story about what will happen to my baby if I go outdoors during the blood moon. Please let me know what precautions I must take. Yours, Hypothetical Reader   The blood moon will not hurt your baby Okay so nobody actually mailed this question to me.  But at the … Continue reading →

Using the Moon as a telescope

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Scientists from the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand have published a novel method to improve the resolution of our view of the universe:  analyse diffraction lines created by the light of a distant object passing the edge of the Moon during a lunar occultation. The problem they’re trying to solve is one of angular resolution:  There’s a limit to how small an object we can see at any particular distance.  A healthy human eye can resolve down to slightly … Continue reading →