Every night we watch. Every night it comes up a little farther north of east. It is slowing down though. Soon it will start to work its way south, but we won’t see that. Tonight’s moonrise was at 10:30. Tomorrow will be at 11:28. We’ll not be setting the alarm for that one. When we can catch the moonrise again, after the new moon, we expect it to rise well to the south of east. We’re going to pay attention this time.
Along the way
While we were in Arizona.
Broad billed hummingbird.
Broad billed hummingbird. The results are in
Based on data from one 24 hour observational period, we can state that the moon does not rise in the same place on the horizon each night. Tonight it rose at least a couple degrees to the north of where it rose last night. What could cause that? Does the moon follow a wobbling orbit? Probably not; not with a daily wobble anyway. Maybe it has to do with the tilt of the axis of the earth’s rotation. That tilt relative to the orbit of the earth around the sun creates the seasons, where the sun appears to rise farther north in the summer and farther south in the winter. Maybe the orbit of the moon around the earth is off from the axis of the earth’s rotation, so the moon appears to move up and down the horizon as well. That might explain it. The cycle of the seasons, our trip around the sun, lasts a year. Maybe the cycle of the moon appearing at different places on our horizon lasts about a month. I wonder if the moon rises at the same place on the horizon every full moon. Further observations are planned.
Watched some college football yesterday
Our teams (University of Texas, and University of Colorado) won. Know how you can tell whether you’re watching college football or the pros? College games are the ones where they act like adults after they score a touchdown. J There is a new dog park in Edinburg. PAWS. We took Henry there today. He got really excited when we arrived, but then got bored pretty fast when there wasn’t anyone else around. Watched the full moon last night and tonight. When we watch the moonrise it seems like it’s not rising from the same place on the horizon each night. We don’t really know though; we haven’t paid that much attention. We’re tracking this one to see if it comes up in the same place tomorrow night as it came up tonight. Even if it comes up in a different place though, it won’t be until an hour later, so we won’t really know if it was in the same place on the horizon as last night at the same time (an hour earlier) while it was still below the horizon.
Estero Llano Grande
