Comment Post

Re: The Lunar Standstill 2006 at Callanish and elsewhere by Anonymous on Sunday, 11 June 2006

Gerald Ponting writes: I know that there has been some doubt about which nights are ‘best’ for the southern moon skim.

Some of the confusion is no doubt due to the fact that if the date for due south is soon after midnight, you need to stay up to see the moon rise, late on the previous day! There has been some discussion about the advantages of June or July.

To clear things up, there is very little to choose between the nights of 11th/12th June and 9th/10th July. The moon is a little lower in July, it’s marginally (probably not observably) closer to Full in June. The moon is only slightly higher on June 12th/13th and on July 8th/9th – so in either month you get two consecutive nights for a chance of clear skies.

Late September is the nearest to the true southern extreme, so the moon’s at its lowest, but it’s a half moon in daylight – not exactly spectacular.

I am travelling up to Lewis in June and hope to capture the moon skim effect. I will post photos here as soon as I can.
As Vicky has said, there are more details on my web page: http://home.clara.net/gponting/page42.html

All the best,
Gerald

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