April 29th, 2018, 10:45 p.m. local time
My sky was remarkably clear all weekend. Blue skies at day and clean skies all night. Just one problem, though – the Moon was approaching Full and washed much of the sky out. So I settled for looking at the Moon, mostly. Jupiter was trailing behind the Moon on Sunday evening, but unfortunately I would have had to wait another 90+ minutes before it cleared my trees, and I could not stay up past midnight.
I took the above picture using my Dobsonian and smartphone. I have mentioned before that the Full Moon is the least interesting of all of the Moon’s phases. There are no crater shadows, no crescents or odd-shaped ovals. No new thin outlines in early evening or old thin outlines at dawn. Looking at the Full Moon is like staring at a moderately bright light bulb.
It is still fun to look at. The brightness is a marvel, whether it is by the Moon illuminating your night surroundings or (my favorite) by you observing the light reflections off of cloud cover.
