Will a full moon occurring in New York, USA & Sydney, Australia at the same time? Or does the area of the planet make full moon viewing different for different regions (like with eclipses)?
2006-10-07 04:34:30 · 7 answers · asked by Giggly Giraffe 7 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Yes and no.
The phase of the moon are a function of what part is lit by the sun (and the earth, that's why you can sometimes see the new moon in the morning or evening). There is a slightly different perspective in the northern and southern hemispheres. This shows up in the crescent and gibous phases. In the south you can see just a little more of the southern hemisphere. In the north, the north. The "harvest moon" isn't the harvest moon in the south. I don't know what they call it.
Did you notice how bright the full moon was last night? It was almost like twilight here in southern Michigan. Beautiful.
2006-10-07 04:50:49 · answer #1 · answered by Wicked Mickey 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You have gotten very good answers. Imagine a hot air balloon high above your house in the western sky with the early morning sun illuminating it from behind your back in the east. All your neighbors would see the balloon essentially the same way except for tiny amounts +/- at the edges relative to their angle of view. It is the same with the moon. And as another poster has said in the N. hemisphere the moon grows from R to L as it approches the full phase but because people in the S. hemisphere are literally "upside down" compared to us it is the exact opposite. If the moon's right side is lit up for you and you phoned someone in Bolivia they would also see a half moon but the left side would appear to be lit up.
2006-10-10 00:34:43 · answer #2 · answered by lampoilman 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
When phase is described by terms like full, half, gibbous, crescent, etc., there's not much difference between what people see anywhere on the globe. But if you express phase exactly (by a number, say the number of degrees from perfectly full) then everyone, whether displaced in latitude or longitude, sees a slightly different phase. Except during a lunar eclipse, you're looking at an approximate sphere, with roughly one half of it illuminated, about 240,000 miles away. A parallax of any size means a different view of this object. People on opposite sides of the earth, if able to see the moon simultaneously, are seeing it from points separated by about 8000 miles. This means an angular difference of 8000/240,000 or about 1/30 radian or 2 degrees. This means one person sees 2 degrees more of the moon on one side, and 2 degrees less of it on the other, than the other person.
2006-10-07 05:10:44 · answer #3 · answered by kirchwey 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The phases are the same everywhere. We are seeing the part of the moon that is sunlit and that won't change no matter where you are when you are looking at it.
Of course, the moon cannot be above the horizon everywhere at once, so some of us can see it when others can't. But that doesn't affect its phase.
2006-10-07 04:41:47 · answer #4 · answered by wild_turkey_willie 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
confident, this is considered in the two hemispheres. in spite of the fact that, the only time it is not seen in one hemisphere is whilst this is under the Tropic of Capricorn or above the Tropic of maximum cancers. The moon is then not seen on the poles or the climate close to to them.
2016-10-18 23:34:09 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes they are the same, although the moon is upside-down in the southern hemisphere compared to the northen and therefore waxes and wanes in the opposite direction.
2006-10-07 04:45:21 · answer #6 · answered by Stuart T 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The moon phases are the same worldwide. Think about the geometry of it ☺
Doug
2006-10-07 04:41:49 · answer #7 · answered by doug_donaghue 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋