The unusual feature of tonight is that the perigee also coincides with a full moon, which will make it appear 14 per cent bigger and some 30 per cent brighter than most full moons this year – so long as the clouds hold off from blocking the view.
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Dec. 9, 2008: No, you can not see Neil Armstrong's footprint. But go ahead and look: The full Moon of Dec. 12th is the biggest and brightest full Moon of the year.

Well the Moon is constantly moving either toward Earth or away from it. And it has a 31 thousand mile range between its closest and most distant points. Way back on May 19th of this year the full Moon was at its farthest for the year, over a quarter million miles away or to be exact 252, 472 miles from Earth. But on Friday the 12th it will be will be 30,885 miles closer only 221, 587 miles away. Wow! And believe me you'll notice the difference in fact it will look over 12% larger.

The moon is the primary source of the gravitational forces which cause the tides. The proximity of the moon in relation to the earth does have an effect on the range of the tides at any given time. In each of its 28-day elliptical orbits, the moon reaches a "perigee," its closest point of approach to the earth. During these periods, there will be a slight increase in the average range of tides. The increases in the range of the tides is seen by a slightly higher than average high tide, as well as a slightly lower than average low tide. Additionally, twice each month, around the times of the new moon and full moon, when the earth, sun, and moon are nearly in line, there is an increase in the average range of the tides. These are called "spring tides." Three or four times a year, the occurrence of a new or full moon will coincide with the "perigee" of the moon, which Mr. Wood has termed the "perigean spring tides".

The difference between the "perigean spring tides" and the normal tidal ranges for all areas of the coast is small. In most cases the difference is only a couple of inches. The largest difference occurs in certain areas of the Alaska coast where the range of the tide was increased by approximately 6 inches. But considering that these areas have an average tidal range of more than 30 feet, the increase is but a small percentage of the whole (less than a 2% increase).

Most people who live along the coastline know that coastal flooding can occur whenever there are strong onshore winds, whether there is a "perigean spring tide" or not. Additionally, this flooding will be worse if the storm strikes around the time of high tide rather than around the time of low tide.

But in ALL cases, it is the storm winds which cause the coastal flooding, not the tides. Coastal flooding is the result of meteorology (the weather) not astronomy (normal tidal fluctuations). All astronomical considerations are accounted for in the NOS tide and tidal current predictions.

Originally posted by Thurisaz
I am going to attempt to take some photos tonight and post them up.
The cloud cover is shocking though at the moment though, hope that clears up!

Anyway, anyone else manage to get some good close up pics, post up



reply to post by purplemonkey

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My friend David will be posting some cool pics we took last night looking at the moon from manchester uk, we were outside his house smoking a cigarette and looked up and there was a beautiful halo around the moon and we tried to film it with night vision camcorder but it did not come out so then we tried taking photographs with and without flash and managed to get some decent pictures with it clearly visable proving it was not our eyes playing tricks nor was it camera flash effects. we tried to come with an explanation to which i thought it was like when your in fog and you have a ring around you, it was much like that but only the ring was around the moon only, i am sure there is nothing unusual about this from a science perspective however we are 31 years of age and have NEVER seen this effect before. It could be coinciding with the fact that the moon was 35000 miles closer according to previous op post or perhaps due to unusual brightness but what was also interesting was that we could see a star on the outer ring and stars further outside this ring but nothing within this ring/halo! very cool regardless of explanation! keep your eyes posted for these pics later today in this thread by david ifty.

[edit on 12-12-2008 by Thurisaz]