Richard just posted a lovely shot of the crescent moon:
http://bcn.net/~rlovison/OMlist/moon.html
I saw the same moon, though not through a telephoto lens, as I came
off my hilltop on 5 acres I own in Wisconsin. This was just after I
finally did what I've been considering doing for years: I marked the
position of the sunset at the winter solstice. I was at my hilltop and
noticed that the sun was about two diameters above the horizon; this
gave me a bare 8 minutes to run to my building, grab a couple steel
fenceposts and a maul, and hurry back to the top of the hill. I drove a
short fence post into the ground, then moved about 20 meters towards the
sunset, held a 7' fence post vertically, and drove it into the ground
where its shadow hit the first fence post. Basically, I was trying to
do what the druids did building Stonehenge, the Mayans did at a site in
the Yucatan, and other ancients did in France, Scotland, and elsewhere.
If I had had more time, I should have marked the position of the setting
of that lovely crescent moon, too. I think that there's an 11 year
cycle that the moon goes through; the Mayans knew that Venus went
through some sort of 33 (or thereabouts) year cycle, too. I won't live
long enough to pin that one down. OM content: now I have to get a
multiple exposure of the sun setting over the course of a few evenings
at the vernal equinox, around March 21.
Best wishes to all for the holidays.
Dean
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