Disappearing Moon

[name420]

I'm located in Las Vegas where it's really hard to get a good look at anything with the naked I. Well tonight as I was standing outside the moon at cresent began to disappear. At first I thought it was clouds but eventually ruled it out. Could this happen because of an eclipse?

 

[kelvinzero]

Also, unless im confused, the earth could only eclipse the moon when the moon is full. If the moon is a cresent then the sun must be way off to one side, and nowhere near behind the earth (wrt to the moon) <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[weeman]

KelvinZero is correct. The Sun's light has to be fully illuminating the Moon (from our perspective) for us to see an eclipse.<br /><br />The next eclipse is actually at the end of this month, on the 28th I believe, and it should be a total eclipse. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[nexium]

A sunshade 0.8 miles in diameter at a distance of about 24 miles, would block our view of the moon much as the Earth blocks light reaching the moon during an eclipse of the moon. We could likely build an untethered hydrogen filled balloon that big with sufficient funding. Standard weather balloons could produce this effect up to about 3 miles away.<br />Was this a very narrow cresent or almost half of a moon? Neil

 

[name420]

Yes the cresent was very small. The cloud cover was down to a bare minimum and the event lasted longer than 1 hr. This was also witnessed by serveral people of the scientific community in which everthing from the clouds to ballons were ruled out.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Sorry, I don't care who discounted it, clouds are the answer.<br />The moon was no more that 15 degrees above the horizon, so clouds over the San Gabriel mountains in California could easlily have blocked the moon. At that elevation, clouds many hundreds of miles could have been in the path.<br /><br />What was their justification for saying it couldn't be clouds? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>