Tag Archives: The Moon

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 →

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 →

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 →