Viewing the Moon from the Roof of the College Parking
Garage During a Lunar Eclipse
Moon viewing on the roof of the College Parking Garage at Fenton and King
Street at 6:30 P.M., on Saturday, November 8, or a program
about "The REAL OCCULT: Lunar & Solar Eclipses and Asteroid & Stellar
Disappearances Sometimes Involving Luna" in the planetarium if it is cloudy.
If it is clear you can stay home and go outside to view the eclipse;
but if you come to Montgomery College at Takoma Park and come to the top of
the Parking Garage you can view the ellipse through a telescope and see the
moon which never disappoints: seeing mares (large flat basins, cooled lava
lakes formed billions of years ago), craters, mountains, and large craters
with central impact mountains. The timing of this early evening lunar
eclipse is particularly convenient for children when the shadow of the earth
occults the full moon.
Besides looking at the moon we will have another telescope looking at Mars.
Mars is only 13.74 arc seconds in diameter now where in late August of this
year it was 25.11 arc seconds. This is sort of a last gasp look at
Mars before it really becomes too small to see for a couple of years.
To realize just how small even 25.11 arc seconds is, the moon is around 1,800
arc seonds in angular diameter.
Mapquest
map to the Montgomery College at Takoma Park, Parking Garage on the corner
of Fenton and King streets with entrance on King Street and exit on Fenton
Street.
Montgomery
College's Planetarium home page
Web page by Dr. Harold Alden Williams.
Last changed November 3, 2003.