Sunday – Full Moon – Eclipse – Transit of Venus

 Nearly full moon last night from Jack Martin and chaotic sky over Zeeland by “priemersma” at ReportIt (see picture full screen here).  Brief showers moved across the area Saturday afternoon, bringing wind gusts of 35-38 mph at Grand Rapids, Holland, Battle Creek, Ionia, Lansing and Alma.  I saw a couple of 6-8 foot long branches that were knocked down.  The odds of rain aren’t zero for today (Sunday), but they are smaller than Saturday.  We’ll also see a bit more sunshine than Saturday.  High temperatures this week will be mostly in the low-mid 70s.  We have a very brief and very partial lunar eclipse coming up at sunrise Sunday AM.  Check this link for more on that.  Tuesday, you can see something that’s only happened in your lifetime once and you will never see again…ever in your lifetime!   It’s the Transit of Venus(across the sun).  Remember you can’t look directly at the sun.  More here at Spaceweather.  Here’s this week’s Sky at a Glance.  Lots of opportunities to see the Intl. Space Station flyover this week.   The full moon (fullest at 5:12 AM Monday AM) is called the “Strawberry Moon”.  The moon is only 223,800 miles from Earth right now, so the moon will look slightly bigger than an average full moon.

Saturday night’s full moon will be super

A super moon is coming to a sky near you.

On Saturday, May 5, the moon will reach perigee — the closest it gets to the Earth as it makes its elliptical orbit around the planet — meaning the moon will be about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the other full moons of 2012, according to Tony Phillips of Science@NASA.

At 9:34 p.m. mountain daylight time, the moon reaches perigee, and just one minute later, it will line up with the Earth and the sun to become completely full.

The sky will be partly cloudy Saturday evening, but should start clearing out around 9 p.m., said Steve Rogowski of the National Weather Service.

The best time to look is when the moon is near the horizon. For reasons that scientists can’t fully explain, a low-hanging moon seems unusually large when it’s viewed through trees and buildings.

The full moon holds a special place in folklore. There are always anecdotes of increased hospital admissions, crime rate increases and people behaving strangely beneath the light of a full moon.

Throughout the Middle Ages, there was widespread belief that the full moon causes mental disorders.

Even the word "lunacy" derives from the Latin word luna for moon.

But modern studies have proven that the moon doesn’t hold such sway over people.

The super moon will cause "perigean tides" in coastal areas, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports tides will only be about an inch higher than normal in most places, with a few areas seeing a six-inch gain in tide height.