What's up with the moon?

[Flippper]

My mom calls me and says "the moon is full but it's not light outside, what's going on?"

So, I look outside, it's a spectacular moon, bright and white, but it's pitch dark outside. I've been watching for the past several nights and it's the same every night, usually a late summer moon, most full moons, you can almost read a newspaper, and you can see where you are walking, like there is a dim night light on.

Now it is black outside without a flashlight. Anyone else notice this?

[Publius]

Overcast and or lite ground fog, right now I can't see many stars only the magnitude 1, 2, 3 are clearly visible.

[NC Susan]

your mom was correct, it was very dark like a new moon night. i googled 'eclipse' and looked on space weather but no explanations anywhere either, but its full and bright again now.
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adding this off topic cuz its interesting
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A blue moon, or two full moons, will appear in August
Blue Moon to Grace the Sky in August

by Allyson Koerner July 31, 2012
Categories: Science.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “once in blue moon,” but have we ever actually seen this so-called blue moon? Well, now you can count yourself as one of the lucky ones, because this August we will get to see one!

A blue moon is not necessarily blue, but it’s when two full moons appear within one month, WTVR reports, with the second being called a “blue moon.”

The first full moon can be seen on Wednesday, Aug. 1 and the second will appear on Friday, Aug. 31.

Space.com’s Joe Rao said a blue moon occurs more often, than not. It occurs once every 2.66 years and in 1999 it appeared twice within three months.

Rao also revealed most people will see the two full moons in August, but with one unique exception. The second moon will go full on Aug. 31 at 9:58 a.m. EST, but for those living in the region of Russian Far East and New Zealand they won’t experience it until Sept. 1, after midnight. Technically, those regions of the world will have a blue moon in September, since our second moon will be their first.

The last time two full moons appeared in the same month was in August 2008. Is it a coincidence that this year’s will happen in August? Rao believes there is a connection and in most cases should appear at the same time as the last blue moon, four years later.

Be sure to get your cameras and binoculars ready, because this won’t happen again until July 2015. Rao also notes that a set of two full moons also appeared in July 2011, four years later just like the moons in August. http://www.ecorazzi.com/2012/07/31/b...sky-in-august/

[Flippper]

I've been watching the moon for the past week, I see it out my window as I type this, and something was not sitting right with me but I couldn't put my finger on it. I just figured out what it was; while the moon is white, it's not as bright as usual, and as I said, it's not giving out it's normal radiant light (not an eclipse type, it's there, it just isn't lighting up anything). What I noted is it's been pitch black around it in the sky for the past week, not a dusky blue where you can see clouds around from the moon backlighting them, it's not putting out enough light to back light. The sky is black as coal.

It's very unnerving.

[NC Susan]

now this article says its DUST which stops the reflective sunlight.

http://www.space.com/8270-mystery-fa...ly-solved.html

Mystery of Faint Moonlight Finally Solved


by SPACE.com Staff
Date: 22 April 2010 Time: 09:50 AM ET

Astronomers have long known that light bouncing off man-made reflectors on the lunar surface is fainter than expected, and mysteriously dims even more whenever the moon is full. Now they think moon dust and solar heating may be the dirty culprit, according to a new report.
The evidence is right here on Earth, researchers said. Only a fraction of the light a team beamed at the moon from a telescope in New Mexico bounces off of old reflectors on the lunar surface and returns to the observatory.
"Near full moon, the strength of the returning light decreases by a factor of ten," said Tom Murphy, an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and the study's lead author. "Something happens on the surface of the moon to destroy the performance of the reflectors at full moon."



Measuring the moon
Murphy leads an effort to precisely measure the distance from Earth to the moon by timing the pulses of laser light that reflect off targets left on the lunar surface 40 years ago by Apollo astronauts.
Earth's atmosphere scatters the outgoing beam, spreading it over a distance of approximately 1.24 miles (2 km) on the surface of the moon.
The scientists aim the light at polished blocks of glass called comer cube prisms, each of which is about 1 1/2 inches (3.8 cm) in diameter.
Most of the laser light misses its target, which is roughly equivalent to the size of a suitcase. Furthermore, the reflectors also diffract returning light so that it spreads over 9.3 miles (15 km) when it reaches Earth again.
So the researchers have always expected to recapture only a small portion of the reflected photons, or particles of light, that actually bounce back. On average, their instruments detect just one-tenth of the returning light, and when the moon is full, ?the results are oddly ten times worse.



Moon dust and heat
Murphy believes that the cubes are heating unevenly at full moon, and that the cause of this discrepancy is likely caused by dust.
"Dust is dark," Murphy said. "It absorbs solar light and would warm the cube prism on the front face."
Ideally, for optimum performance, the entire cube must be the same temperature.

Apollo astronauts left arrays of corner-cube prisms, like the one shown here, on the moon 40 years ago. Now light bouncing back from these reflectors appears to have dimmed. Scientist think dust is to blame. CREDIT: UC San Diego

Astronomers have long known that light bouncing off man-made reflectors on the lunar surface is fainter than expected, and mysteriously dims even more whenever the moon is full. Now they think moon dust and solar heating may be the dirty culprit, according to a new report.
The evidence is right here on Earth, researchers said. Only a fraction of the light a team beamed at the moon from a telescope in New Mexico bounces off of old reflectors on the lunar surface and returns to the observatory.
"Near full moon, the strength of the returning light decreases by a factor of ten," said Tom Murphy, an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and the study's lead author. "Something happens on the surface of the moon to destroy the performance of the reflectors at full moon."

Robot to Mine the Moon ieeetv.ieee.org
Watch Engineers Develop a Robot That May Help Us Colonize the Moon.


Measuring the moon
Murphy leads an effort to precisely measure the distance from Earth to the moon by timing the pulses of laser light that reflect off targets left on the lunar surface 40 years ago by Apollo astronauts.
Earth's atmosphere scatters the outgoing beam, spreading it over a distance of approximately 1.24 miles (2 km) on the surface of the moon.
The scientists aim the light at polished blocks of glass called comer cube prisms, each of which is about 1 1/2 inches (3.8 cm) in diameter.
Most of the laser light misses its target, which is roughly equivalent to the size of a suitcase. Furthermore, the reflectors also diffract returning light so that it spreads over 9.3 miles (15 km) when it reaches Earth again.
So the researchers have always expected to recapture only a small portion of the reflected photons, or particles of light, that actually bounce back. On average, their instruments detect just one-tenth of the returning light, and when the moon is full, ?the results are oddly ten times worse.
Moon dust and heat
Murphy believes that the cubes are heating unevenly at full moon, and that the cause of this discrepancy is likely caused by dust.
"Dust is dark," Murphy said. "It absorbs solar light and would warm the cube prism on the front face."
Ideally, for optimum performance, the entire cube must be the same temperature.
"It doesn't take much, just a few degrees, to significantly affect performance," Murphy said.
NASA engineers went to great lengths to minimize temperature differences across the prisms, which rest in arrays tilted toward Earth. Individual prisms sit in recessed pockets so that they are shielded from direct light when the sun is low on the moon's horizon.
But, when the full face of the moon appears illuminated from Earth, the sun is directly above the arrays.
"At full moon, the sun is coming straight down the pipe into these recessed pockets," Murphy explained.
The reflective properties of the prisms, which are clear glass, derive from the shape of their polished facets. Uneven heating of the prisms, which could occur with absorption by a dust coating, would bend the shape of the light pulses they reflect, interfering with the accuracy of measurements.
Light travels faster through warmer glass, and although all paths through the cube prisms are the same length, photons that strike the edge of the reflector will stay near the surface. Meanwhile, those that strike the center will pass deeper into the cube before hitting a reflective surface.
If the surface of the prism is warmer than the deeper parts, light that strikes the edges of the prism will re-emerge sooner than light that strikes the center, distorting the shape of the reflected laser pulses.



Lunar dust dilemma
But finding the source of the problematic dust could be more difficult, Murphy said.
The moon has no atmosphere and no wind, but electrostatic forces can move dust around. A constant rain of micrometeorites might also puff dust onto the moon's surface. Larger impacts that eject material from the surface across a greater distance could also contribute to the buildup.
Murphy recently returned from a trip to Italy, where a chamber built to simulate lunar conditions may help sort through the possible explanations.
"We think we have a thermal problem at full moon, plus optical loss at all phases of the moon," Murphy said. Accumulated dust on the front surface of the reflectors could account for both observations.
If sunlight-heated dust is really to blame, the researchers should notice the effect vanish during a lunar eclipse. In other words, light should bounce back while the moon passes through Earth's shadow, then dim again as sunlight hits the arrays once more.
"Measurements during an eclipse ? there are just a few ? look fine," Murphy said. "When you remove the solar flux, the reflectors recover quickly, on a time scale of about half an hour."
The researchers' findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Icarus.
Previously, the McDonald Observatory, a research unit of The University of Texas at Austin, located in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, ran similar experiments at full moon between 1973 and 1976. But, between 1979 and 1984, they had "a bite taken out of their data," during full moons, Murphy said. "Ours is deeper." This could signify that the problem may be getting worse.
So far, bad weather has prevented the project from operating during a lunar eclipse. The next opportunity for the researchers will be on the night of Dec. 21, 2010.