Good evening, Kibitzers! The full moon this month occurred this morning at 7:13 am EDT (meaning, that was the point at which the moon was 180° from the sun, and therefore "full"). The full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox, which will be this Sunday afternoon, is commonly called the Harvest Moon.
The name comes from a time when farmers depended on bright moonlight to allow them enough hours to get all their crops harvested. In addition to being bright, the full moon around the equinox has reached a point in its orbit where, instead of rising 50 minutes later each day, as it does most of the year, it rises only about 30 minutes later for a week or so, because of the narrow angle of the ecliptic, conveniently providing light after sunset for an extra-long time. (There's a diagram at the link that might help explain this.)
If you are a sky watcher, you'll be able to see some planets this evening also. For almost an hour immediately after sunset, Venus and Saturn will be visible low in the southwest. Later, Uranus will be only 4° from the moon all night. Diagrams at this link. There's a lot of information about making detailed moon observations with a telescope at this link.
If you'd like much of this information in easily-digestible video form, here's a nice little under-3-minute piece from NASA, except I think they are using some other definition of "full moon" from everyone else on the internet, because they claim it was at 9 pm ET Wednesday.
This is a half-hour presentation of the SLOOH SpaceCamera (thanks, CaddisFly!) that streamed live last night. They have frequent livestreams of celestial events and sights of interest, at the link, which can also be seen later.
This concludes the science-y portion of our diary. Below the little cloud lighted by moonglow are some pretty Harvest Moon pictures I lifted from Flickr, because I do not at all have the right camera for taking good moon pictures! (Soundtrack in the tip jar, if it is too quiet where you are.)
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of their evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, interesting videos, and so forth. We would also appreciate links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate.
Please note that pie fights will be unwelcome in this community, just as in most other series at DKos.
Finally, readers may notice that most who are posting diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but that definitely does not mean that newcomers will be excluded or unwelcome. We're happy to welcome guests to our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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