SUUSI Moon: So Low and So Red
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No moon is lovelier than a SUUSI Full Moon, hanging in the sky above us, raining down its SUUSI glow and making everything SUUSI at Virginia Tech, at Slusher, at Owens, at the Outdoor Movie, at Stargazing and everywhere. This was the Year of the SUUSI Full Moon, and we got to see it early on Wednesday night at Stargazing. As it rose, it shone with the deepest red I have ever seen from a moon near the horizon. A look in the binoculars showed all the features of the Moon tinted with the orangish-red color. As it rose, it became orange, amber, yellow, and then white, where it blotted much else from the sky. Actually astronomers don't like the Moon too much because it prevents them from seeing other objects. We also saw Jupiter with its four moons, and some bright stars, including the Summer Triangle and the Big Dipper. I tried to take a picture of the Moon putting my digital camera up to a binoculars without a tripod, but I could not control the motion, and it got blurred and overexposed.
I gave the workshop Stories of the Sky, in which I described the legends behind the constellations of the sky, including ones from the Far East and native America. I told my class of tales of how the hunters chase the bear, Orion chases the seven sisters, and Great Star (Mars) chases Bright Star (Venus) to the west in Skidi Pawnee myth. All of these legends arise from the daily motion of the stars, caused by the rotation of our planet.