Posts Made By: Curt Renz

The event will produce unusually extreme ocean tides. The Earth's mantle also exeriences the tidal effect. Be on the lookout for earthquakes. 8O

Since the Moon will be near Apogee and the equinox is well past, a Moon less than 24 hours old will be tough to spot. 8)

I spotted the Moon aged 29:44 on 2004 JUN 18 at 21:11 CDT (JUN 19 at 02:11 UT) from Arlington Heights, Illinois, USA (W 87.97 - N 42.08). That was 40 minutes after Sunset. At the time the Moon was at Azimuth 302.7 degrees and Altitude 4.5 degrees. It was elongated from the Sun by 13.5 degrees and 1.4% illuminated with an angular diameter of 29.5 arcminutes.

Fortunately, the western sky had just begun to clear as I was walking northwest along a highway. I kept scanning the horizon ahead of me, and suddenly there she was. No optical aids (other than glasses) were needed to assist.

Surely, someone was able to beat that.

This should be a good one for Chris Faris. 8)

A resident of Madras, India reports that he spotted the Moon on 2004 JUL 18 @ 13:34 UT. At that time it would have been aged 26:10. He made the claim within a similar thread that I initiated at astronomy.com. His name is Navneeth and he uses the handle SN1987A.

Pasted below are his comments from astronom.com:

NEW MOON SPOTTED!

Date&Time: 18/07/2004 -1904 IST(UT + 0530 hrs)
Location: Chennai(Madras), India
Age of the Moon: ~26.17 hours

Having waited for half an hour finally paid off.Conditions were pretty clear compared to other evenings, but the lowest part of the western horizon had a bit of clouds. I had no idea how to find this slender crescent, but knew that it would still be visible after twilight(albeit just a few degrees above the horizon). During the day I noted(from Cartes) that Jupiter, Regulus, Mercury, Mars and the moon would more or less form a bright chain. It wasn't until a few minutes before spotting the moon that I remembered this. After that it was a couple of minutes of search which led me to a crescent. I double and triple checked by looking away for a few seconds and then looking back...it was unmistakably the new(well...sort of) moon.

--------------------
clear skies,
Navneeth

Information regarding the periods of visibility of the planets has been added.

A nighttime Jupiter occultation will occur on December 7 for many Americans. The graphic for that can be downloaded though the same link in my earlier post in this thread.

Darrell, of course you did the right thing. I'm glad you brought that up. But I reported this as a prophylactic, a preventative. Once you have received such a gift, there is no cure. You just grin and say, "Thank you."

A tiny firm, the International Star Registry, has sold well over a million of these star namings at about $50 dollars for the basic package and more than double for those who order the extras (which most of them do). Their only real expense is advertising. The owner has gotten filthy rich on the gullibility of others. Click link:

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,49345,00.html

The radio stations look the other way as they rake in their shares. It's particularly sad that many of these stars have been named for deceased loved ones, often children. But the hucksters don't care. It doesn't help if we offer them passes.

Victims of a scam usually go into denial once they learn the truth. Even if they accept reality, they will nevertheless make excuses for the perpertrator. This keeps the game going. It's really only we knowlegeable non-victims who can at least put up speed bumps by spreading the word.

We astronomers need to be beacons of light. We won't have to pretend that a foolish gift is marvelous if we provide early warnings to our friends and relatives. If anyone really wants to name a star after someone, I heartily recommend that he do his own research on the star and create a beautifully designed certificate. Having put our own effort into such a project would be far more meaningful than giving money to a con artist to do it for us.

It you take pictures of the event, please post them here.

That's a great anecdote. It's really what everyone should do rather than patronize the scammers.