Last night Jay and I were sitting on his porch, relaxing and shooting the breeze. The moon had made its appearance in the sky at just the right light, so Jay ran in and grabbed his telescope. He set it all up and then let me take a look. I’m new to this whole star gazing and astronomy thing, so I’m slowly (VERY slowly) trying to learn what he’s teaching me. I was never good in the sciences when I was in school so learning astronomy is harder for me than learning how to fly RC planes!

This is very close to what I saw last night through the eyepiece of the telescope. Sure I had seen it in movies and online many time before. However, there’s a completely different sense of awe when you actually see it for yourself. I was amazed at the detail we were able to see. Jay doesn’t have the most expensive telescope so it’s not like he’s going to be able to get dazzling and extremely highly detailed views. What we did see was gorgeous, though. And believe me, besides a diamond or gem, I’ve never referred to a rock as gorgeous. 😉

This picture does a little better job of showing some of the relief detail that is on the surface of the moon. If you look down in the lower right hand corner you can see a white spot that radiates out. Per my hot Astronomer, this was where the moon was hit with a giant meteor that caused this huge crater. Apparently one of those lines radiating out is a few thousand miles long (I might have that wrong, but it’s a large number and I was impressed). The dark spots are the seas, although they are dry because water can’t exist on the moon. There’s nothing to hold it there, ie gravity. Per my Hotness, the water would vaporize almost instantly.

I probably learned this in science MANY years ago, but I had forgotten so I will share it with you because I found it to be interesting. Did you know that the moon doesn’t spin? It rotates around earth, but the moon itself is always static in its position. Thus, standing here on earth, we will only ever see this one side of the moon. It is a New Moon when it is exactly between Earth and the Sun. It is a Full Moon when Earth is exactly between it and the Sun. Interesting, isn’t it?

There are many more interesting moon facts that I learned last night, but I don’t think that I could accurately articulate them here in my post, so I’ll let you have your own fun and go searching it out for yourself. You never know, you might actually learn something. EGADS! Not that!! We left that behind when we graduated, right??! 😉

Have fun and go mooning!