Moon

You say the economy's in the tank, your credit card's maxed out, and you can't afford a movie ticket, much less a Wii? Well, lift your head up high! Go ahead, look up! The new year holds in store all kinds of celestial entertainment for Maryland stargazers. And they're all free. There are spectacular moonrises and moonsets, a string of promising meteor showers and planetary conjunctions rivaling the Dec. 1 triple conjunction of the moon, Venus and Jupiter. We do seem to be in a sort of "eclipse recession," however.

Tonight's full moon rises over Baltimore at 5:55 p.m., though clouds may spoil the view. The first full moon after the winter solstice was once known as the Moon After Yule, or the Old Moon. It seems larger than usual because it is just 17 hours past perigee (and closest approach to Earth in 2009). Watch for high tides. We'll have 13 full moons this year, with two in December - on the 2nd and 31st.

Skies should clear enough tonight to reveal a bright moon, which reached official fullness at 12:45 a.m. this morning. February's full moon comes with a passel of folk names, all evocative of winter's danger and deprivation. Some of our ancestors called it the Snow Moon, which makes sense given February's history of big snowfalls. Others knew it as the Wolf Moon, a frightening suggestion of predators circling our settlements in the moonlight. For many whose winter stores were dwindling, it was the Hunger Moon.

Watch for a close conjunction of a slim crescent moon and the brilliant planet Venus, high in the western sky after sunset this evening, if skies are clear. Just three days past new, the moon may show some "Earthshine" - a faint illumination of the dark portion of the moon, courtesy of sunlight reflected onto the moon from the day side of the Earth. With luck and clear air, you might also be able to spot tiny, star-like Mercury, well below Venus and to right, close to the horizon.

A second full moon in a calendar month is often called a "blue moon." But Becky and Don Gansauer of Baltimore note that while Spaceweather.com calls tonight's full moon blue, "the calendar on my wall says a full moon will happen on June 1, with another on June 30, making IT the blue moon. Which is correct?" Depends on your time zone. The moon is fully "full" today at 9:04 p.m. EDT. But that's 1:04 a.m. tomorrow in Coordinated Universal (or Greenwich Mean) Time.

On July 1, 2007 EVA MAE MOON-BOONE. On Thursday friends may call at the VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES, 5151 Balto. Nat'l Pike, from 2:00-6:00 p.m. On Friday, Mrs. Eva Mae Moon-Boone will lie in state at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial U.M.C., 5114 Windsor Mill Road, where the family will receive friends from 10:00-11:00 a.m. with services to follow. Inquiries to 410-233-2400.

In the Valley of Elah is too inept and diffuse to be a howl against the war in Iraq. At best, it is a manly whimper. Written and directed with a two-by-four by that proponent of earnest overstatement Paul Haggis (Crash), it stars Tommy Lee Jones as a former military policeman who retunes his old cop reflexes when his son, back from Iraq, is hideously murdered. Charlize Theron plays the small-town police detective who helps him crack the case after he convinces her that the crime took place on public, not military, grounds.

Stargazers want skies to clear quickly behind yesterday's cold front passage. At 9:15 tonight the full Hay Moon (or Thunder Moon) rises in the east over Baltimore. Turn around to see Venus and Saturn slow-dancing in the west, less than a degree apart (the width of your pinky held at arm's length). Venus is the very bright "evening star." Far-dimmer Saturn is sliding past, just above Venus, for the next few nights. They're a treat in binoculars or a small telescope. Jupiter gleams in the southeast.

Barbara Marks of Ellicott City asks: "Has there ever been a blue moon in February?" Depends on your definition. The modern "blue moon" is the second full moon in any month. But since the lunar cycle takes at least 29.2 days, not even a leap year February has room for two. In 1999, February had no full moon at all. An older definition is the third full moon in a season with four. That occurs in seven out of 19 years, always in February, May, August or November.

j-ref announces changes to board Michael A. Mobley, executive director of j-ref, has announced changes to the Howard County financier's board of directors for the 2008 fiscal year, beginning this month. Christopher Young of the Business & Technology Law Group in Columbia, is the board's new chairman. New at-large board members include Michael Mercurio, Deborah Stroman and Tina M. Corner. Mercurio is an associate at Offit Kurman P.A. in Maple Lawn. Stroman, a former borrower of j-ref and a sports marketing consultant, is the co-founder of Soulful Golf Inc. in Ellicott City, and owner of Stroman Athletic and Asset Management in Columbia.

As kids, we loved it when Halloween fell on a Saturday. Our parents tried to hold us back, but we set out with our costumes and trick-or-treat bags as early as we could. After dark, a big moon made the neighborhood even spookier. We're two days short of the full moon this year. But if skies are clear, that will be good enough. We won't have a real full moon over our Halloweeen haunts until 2020.

Jack Scott in Baltimore says he was taught that the dark portion of a less-than-full moon is caused by "the sun casting the shadow of the Earth upon it." But after seeing the sun rise alongside a crescent moon, he asked, "How can that be?" Re-read your class notes, Jack. The dark portion lies in the moon's own shadow. It's the side facing away from the sun. Earth's shadow falls on the moon only during lunar eclipses.

Timothy Dicke works all day doing maintenance and other jobs around Baltimore and then goes out all night with his camera, shooting up to 2,000 photos each week of Maryland scenes lit by a phosphorescent glow. Thirty of the very best are the subject of a one-man show, the artist's first, running through Nov. 7 at Creative Alliance. There are companion shots of the Domino Sugars plant - the cheery front, in which the familiar, red and yellow sign and the lights from the office building are reflected in the nearly motionless waters of the Inner Harbor, and a moody photo of the rear, in which a lilac wall contrasts with the rest of the shadowed edifice.

Almost 400 years after Galileo spied Saturn's iconic ring system, a University of Maryland astronomer has discovered another gigantic but invisible ring around the planet. More than 14 million miles in diameter, it is by far the largest in the solar system. Maryland's Douglas P. Hamilton and two University of Virginia astronomers spotted the dark, dusty ring using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which is orbiting the sun 66 million miles from Earth. They reported their find Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Roberta Vonderheide of Parkville still recalls the "magical moment" from 25 years ago. She watched from a boat as a reddened sun set in the west, while the full moon rose over trees to the east. "Is this a common occurrence? We never saw it again." Clouds might obscure it, but it happens every 29 days. Full moons always rise as the sun sets. What's uncommon is taking the time to watch.

The moon was full at precisely 2:11 a.m. this morning, but we won't see it until it rises for Baltimore at 6:37 p.m. Out at the beaches, look for the moon to peek above the ocean at 6:32 p.m. And, because it's the full moon closest in time to the autumnal equinox, it's regarded as the Harvest Moon, the one that illuminated the fields as farmers worked late to bring in their crops.

If our skies clear, watch in the southeast for the next few nights as the waxing moon creeps closer to the brilliant planet Jupiter each evening. By Tuesday evening, Luna will be within just 2 degrees of Jupiter, the width of two fingers held at arm's length. Jupiter is currently almost 400 million miles from Earth. The moon on Tuesday will be about 250,000 miles away from us.

"I got more in me, and you can set it free. I can catch the moon in my hand. ... " - from "Fame," by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford Scott AuCoin really is trying to catch the moon in his hand, along with the stars above a Massachusetts hilltop, the feel of the grass beneath his back and the sound of his friends' voices. At age 17, the high school senior and budding composer already has his first commission under his belt, a five-minute concerto for full orchestra called "Light the Path."

Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish New Year 5770, began after sunset Friday night, when the sky grew dark enough for at least three stars to be seen. The date is timed to the first appearance of the young moon closest to the autumn equinox, which occurs on Sept. 22 this year. The formula was established by the Jewish religious leader Hillel II, in A.D. 363. Happy New Year!

Winter in Baltimore will be colder than usual this year, with snow beginning around Thanksgiving. But it looks like next spring and summer, despite a rainy June, will be dry to the point of drought. I can say this with some confidence because The Old Farmer's Almanac for 2010 was released - as always - on the second Tuesday of September, and that's its weather prediction for our area. And I can be confident of this weather prediction - though it is somewhat vague - because The Old Farmer's Almanac is the oldest continuously published periodical in North America, and it boasts 80 percent accuracy.