I wrote the blog post linked to at the beginning of this thread. I'm not thrilled to find it here as evidence supporting a "crazy theory," but
thanks for reading.
As you may know, the Moon does not orbit the Earth in a circular orbit, but an elliptical orbit. And the Earth is not at the center of this ellipse.
This means that the Moon is sometimes closer to us than other times. Kepler's and Newton's laws tell us that the orbital speed of the Moon increases
when it is near perigee, and decreases when near apogee. Since the Moon's
rotational speed is constant, when the Moon's orbital speed
changes, the Moon appears to wobble, showing us a little bit of the "far side" at the eastern and western limbs.
Also, the Moon's orbit is inclined to the Earth's orbital plane. Sometimes it is north of our orbital plane, and sometimes is is south of our
orbital plane. This lets us sometimes see slightly farther north and south.
I'm no mathematician, but these phenomena are well known. In fact, "Virtual Moon Atlas" (a free downloadable lunar map) includes this information
in its ephemeris, which I included in the blog post. The librations were predicted with the VMA software, and I confirmed through observation. I'm no
scientist, but this is what science does.
For a better explanation of lunar librations, try asking on this thread.
astronomer.proboards.com...
Now, I realize I'm going to be accused of using scientific words to confuse people. That's not the case. I use these words because it's the
language of astronomy. Anybody who doesn't understand it is conceding that they really don't know what they're talking about, right?
Furthermore, I resent the implication that because I posted my data on my blog, not some conspiracy theory site populated by the gullible and
ill-informed, that I was somehow trying to keep this information secret. I posted it on two astronomical websites, for the purpose of helping other
lunar observers become better observers. I knew exactly what I saw, understood that it was nothing more than lunar libration, and left it at that. It
was posted matter-of-factly. No hype, no fear, no exaggeration, no hysteria. Doesn't that give a clue that this is nothing abnormal?
And what exactly is your "crazy theory (by which you mean hypothesis)?" It's never really spelled out for us.
One last thing: please do not use my data ever again as support for an ignorant claim. Thanks.
Paul Christman
Calumet Astronomical Society
Observing Director
