Bright Moon

onight the moon looks way bigger than usual and it's so bright, that it hurts looking at it, and it even beats some street lights in reflecting light off the streets.

This is from North America by the way.

Can anyone explain this phenomenon?

i made a note on the brightness of the moon earlier as well... i thought i was crazy

I once ready a story about the moon being very bright and it was casued by the sun going supernova. The people on the dark side did not know that the people on the day side were melting =). Eventually it got them all as night became day.

The bright moon was the first indication to one scientist on the night side that something was wrong etc... I think he met some lady and told her about it and then had sex and hid in some house and lived through it. For the life of me I cannot rememeber were I read that..

Originally posted by Xeven
I once ready a story about the moon being very bright and it was casued by the sun going supernova. The people on the dark side did not know that the people on the day side were melting =). Eventually it got them all as night became day.

The bright moon was the first indication to one scientist on the night side that something was wrong etc... I think he met some lady and told her about it and then had sex and hid in some house and lived through it. For the life of me I cannot rememeber were I read that..

I am pretty sure that was an episode of The Outer Limits

Originally posted by Mindwalker

Originally posted by Xeven
I once ready a story about the moon being very bright and it was casued by the sun going supernova. The people on the dark side did not know that the people on the day side were melting =). Eventually it got them all as night became day.

The bright moon was the first indication to one scientist on the night side that something was wrong etc... I think he met some lady and told her about it and then had sex and hid in some house and lived through it. For the life of me I cannot rememeber were I read that..

I am pretty sure that was an episode of The Outer Limits

Maybe the Outer Limits barrowed the story from the book I read. It was fairly old book with lots of short stories. I remeber another one about a minute black hole on mars that was used to murder some guy... jesh I would like to remember that book....

Yes, I will co-sign on this issue. Being someone who suffers from shall we say "sleep-itis", I consistenly observe the night sky and I have noted that the moon has been exceptionally bigger and brighter recently. The reason? Who knows but it is worth noting when a celestial body of any significance that is within our scope of knowledge drastically changes in observed size and reflection especially one so damn close to our own little celestial body.

~ Rebel Saint ~

P.S.- I live in the North east in a suburban type area and the moon reflects off the street and dwarfs the street lights outside.

[edit on 24-2-2005 by RebelSaint]

The moon is bright because its a full moon right now. The rest of the month the moon is not reflecting all of its sunny side to us. If you have a telescope and want to look at the moon it is better to look at it when it is quarter moon or crescent. Looking at a full moon in a telescope is brutal on your eyes.
I like to go out side on full moon nights because its nice and bright. I can't tonight because its too cold .

Obviously I know how bright full moons look like, because I enjoy photographing the moon. This is the first time I've seen it this bright, and I can tell because it's even showing up differently on the pictures.

could you post some pictures?

I saw that Outer Limits yesterday or so on the SciFi channel. It was on when I woke up. After about 2 minutes of watching, it sent me diving into my vast Larry Niven collection just to see if my suspicions were right... They were, the story uses the same name as the short story "Inconstant Moon." It's in his collection entitled All the Myriad Ways. Page 124, at least in the first edition paper back.

Larry Niven was also given credits at the end of the show, by the way.

Anyway, it was a Full Moon. The atmosphere may have been clear/stable where you were, so a bit more light could have gotten through. It looked nothing out of the ordinary here in Michigan.

Here in Vancouver the air is always the cleanest, so I doubt it was that (we live beside a forest/part and the air is always clean due to the arctic winds, especially in this season.

Originally posted by VirusClock
onight the moon looks way bigger than usual and it's so bright, that it hurts looking at it, and it even beats some street lights in reflecting light off the streets.

This is from North America by the way.

Can anyone explain this phenomenon?

I am guessing the moon was probably around the horizon. Our brain tend to perceive things around the horizon bigger than any point in the sky. They even have a name of this phenomenon, but I don't remember it off hand.

Brightness depends on many issues, clouds, smoke, sunlight, pollution, etc.

I doubt this is anything but normal, so no need to worry.

Surf

I have seen a similar occurence some time ago. I live in South Australia and I remember going outside and remarking the brightness of the moon to a friend of mine. We went for a drive out of town where it was darker and the light of the moon ws sufficient to drive with the headlights off, Just.

Upon getting out of the car we could see the colour in many things including each others eyes. This was at about 1040 at night. Funnily enough no-one else seemed to notice???

Originally posted by surfup
I am guessing the moon was probably around the horizon. Our brain tend to perceive things around the horizon bigger than any point in the sky. They even have a name of this phenomenon, but I don't remember it off hand.

Brightness depends on many issues, clouds, smoke, sunlight, pollution, etc.

I doubt this is anything but normal, so no need to worry.

Surf

Here I explain again. The moon wasn't near the horizon, it was high up in the sky, where you needed to tilt your head 80º upwards to see it.

How about this.

I've always noticed that a Post-lunar ecplipse moon, is brighter, than your average Full moon..It has always seemed extremely bright for a few hours just after the end of a lunar ecplipse.

My reasoning for this was that The Sunlight is being reflected in a more direct path, due to the alignment. Much like a roadsign appears brightest, when you are in the same path as the illumination (your Headlights).

Move off to the side a little, and the sign is much dimmer. Tiny little clear beads on the surface of the sign cause this effect.

Maybe this effect, is present, to a lesser extent, with the illumination of the Moon. Is it possible, the surface of the moon, may have some similar components, and qualities?

Having said that, I know there was no lunar eclipse, but maybe there was a "near eclipse"?
Can someone check this with Starry-night, or similar software?

[edit on 25-2-2005 by spacedoubt]

Structure of moon's surface dust is such that it tends to reflect light back towards direction where it came. And around full moon moon is almost in opposite direction from earth than sun. (it's exactly opposite direction at time of lunar eclipse)
If you observe moon on consecutive days you'll notice that few days before full moon brightness starts to increase fast, and same way brightness starts to drop fast few days after full moon.


With ground covered by snow I could have almost read newspaper in moonlight at time of full moon.
Snow also makes sunglasses mandatory outside... if you do something with computer in normally illuminated room and then go to look outside through window it literally hurts. Digicam's have worse dynamic range than eye but this gives some direction how bright it's out there.


People just should go much more often outside concrete deserts and excessive light pollution... with snow on ground there's always enough light to see well in open terrain even without moonlight if you just let eyes adapt to dark.
Pupil itself expands to full aperture in few seconds but if you wait 20-30 minutes you'll be surprised how well you can see even in almost complete dark after there's maximum amount of chemical (which increases light sensitivity) on retina, althought effect of it starts to show after few minutes it takes that long for maximum effect.
(also if you go suddenly to even dim inside lightning it hurts to keep eyes open for half minute)

Originally posted by Umbrax
I like to go out side on full moon nights because its nice and bright. I can't tonight because its too cold

.

What cold... -20 C with "mild" northern wind is perfect weather!

I thought I was going crazy myself when I noticed the moon looked brighter and bigger. I guess this thread cleared all that up