Late Night Pneu-moon-ia

I'm fairly convinced that interesting astrological phenomena are always scheduled for when it's 20º below zero outside. Take Maine, for example. On a good night where my folks live the skies are so clear you can pick out the rust spots on the unidentified flying objects. (As opposed to the LA basin where on a clear night I can almost make out the street light at the end of my driveway.) Whenever I visit my folks in Maine I try to hit the backyard one night and go sightseeing. The nebula in Orion is particularly clear, and with a modest set of binoculars you can get a pretty decent view of the Andromeda galaxy. But unfortunately both Orion and Andromeda are winter constellations, and in my opinion, the winter sky in general is the far more interesting and worthwhile sky to peruse. This means, of course, that if you want a good night of star-gazing, you have to put up with temperatures that mimic my stock returns.

But even the summers are frustrating. My best summer sky hunting is up in the mountains on camping trips. But what happens after sunset in the mountains? That's right, it gets bleeping cold.

I thought last night I'd found an exception to the rule. Last night (January 10^th) the moon was at perigee, which means it's at it's closest spot to earth in it's orbit. That and other astro-physical considerations that I don't really claim to understand contributed to the full moon being the largest and brightest it would look in all of 2009. It was expected to be something like 14% wider and 30% brighter than usual. (Thanks, Wayne for the tip off!)

Given a noteworthy celestial event over sunny Southern California (OK, maybe "sunny" would be the wrong term for star-gazing...), I thought I'd found an exception to my cold conclusion. Not so. Being too busy to catch things in the early evening, I got up and went out this morning before the moon set. Yup. It was pretty miserable. But I did get the following picture snapped before my trigger finger seized up. (Yes, I know: without any context in which to judge its size and brightness it looks like... well, a picture of the moon - and a fairly out-of-focus one as well. Big deal.)

And I know any of my family members in Maine reading this now are giving me the "poor baby" taunt I so love giving my own children. "Brave Steve, you had to endure the chilly night air!" they say, dripping with sarcasm. "What a trooper! A true hero!" People from Maine generally aren't too sympathetic when you whine about how cold you are...