mr-damon/moon

En route to last night's Great Conjunction, the Moon ran right over Venus. The event, which astronomers call a "lunar occultation," happened directly over Europe where Romanian photographer Stanescu Octavian took this picture:

"I caught Venus just before it disappeared behind the dark edge of the Moon," he says. Venus remained hidden for more than an hour, then popped out again to form a spectacular triangle with Jupiter and Luna as opposing vertices. "What a very nice vision!"

Photo details: Canon 300D + a homemade 250mm Newtonian telescope

"The Moon is more than just shades of gray. Lunar seas are suffused with blue, purple, orange and other colors--you just can't see them at first glance... The colors are real. Blue hues reveal titanium-rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions that are low on iron."

Photo by Stephen Seip in Germany, where the Aug. 1 eclipse was partial. "Here in Stuttgart the eclipse was partial (8%). I mounted 3 images and aligned them to the profile of the Moon limb. So I was able to show more of the Moon limb than with any other single shot. I had many clouds here - but not to bad for the mystic view of my collage."

"What an incredible event experienced by over 10,000 visitors in Novosibirsk earlier today. Following some very unfavourable skies the past few days, the skies opened up a couple of hours before first contact in anticipation of today's highlight event. Temperatures dropped noiceably as we approached first contact with slight winds being noticed as well. Stunning diamond rings announced the arrival and completion of totality and observers were treated to various prominences on the solar limb. No two eclipses are the same and today's majestic event was equally as impressive and grand as the 2006 total solar eclipse on the Greek isle of Kastelorizo."

Today (July 26) is the first day of the new 13-Moon Year. The totem for this period is the Blue Electric Storm.

"I have frequently bemoaned the stingy data release policy of JAXA and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), who have chosen not to show off the full capability of the high-definition camera aboard the Kaguya lunar orbiter; they've been releasing only very low-resolution video to the Internet, and make the full-resolution video available only via DVD to educators who sign a restrictive release form. (I can send you that form if you send me an email.) At last, though, the restrictions appear to be loosening just a tiny bit; they have now released some video to the Web that, if it's not actually at HD resolution, it's at least at the resolution of standard-definition TV sets. The two videos are from the November Earthrise and Earthset releases. They're very beautiful, but short!"