Moon Madness

[elanora]

I am only new on this forum but can someone explain to me -

last night I looked out (from Sydney) at a beautiful waxing crescent moon.

However the current moon on this site shows a waning crescent?

Am I missing something??

[Lee]

I think you are missing something - at present we are heading to a new moon next week, so the crescent is getting less and less each night - it is waning. After the new moon, when the crescent grows nightly (as the angle between the earth, sun and moon grows larger) - then it is waxing.

by the way.....

[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

I understand what she's asking, though you are right plasmodium The answer, elanora, is that most software programs for moon phase demos are written in the northern hemisphere, and that is how they see the moon! I have another beaut program for a desktop display of moon phase with altitude and azimuth location at any time of day and it shows the moon the same way. I'm not that good with programs and I've been unable to workout how to break into it and see if I can turn it around.

So we should be asking, are there any southern hemisphere programmers out there that can write us a moon phase display that shows it the right way up for us down under?

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

Make sure the "Southern hemisphere" display option has been selected, it should already be set in Southern mode in this link:

http://www.tutiempo.net/en/moon/phases_10_2007_S.htm

[Stephen65]

Virtual Moon Atlas (by far the best Lunar software IMHO - and it's free) has options that let you view the Moon as seen from the Southern Hemisphere, you can also account for the left-right reflection caused by a diagonal equipped refractor or SCT.

elanora

You can also tell waxing v waning by the time the Moon rises - if you are seeing a crescent Moon rising in the East after midnight it's a waning Moon. A waxing Moon would already be in the sky as the sun sets.

To elaborate - there is a consistent relationship each Lunar month between the times the Moon is in the sky and the phase:

- a New Moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset
- a First Quarter Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight
- a Full Moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise
- a Last Quarter moon rises at midnight and sets at noon

so each day during the Lunar month as the phase advances the moon rises a little later and sets a little later until the complete cycle has completed and starts again.

[elanora]

Hi all,

I did have the waxing and waning mixed up but I understand that now.

I was confused by what I now know as a Northern Hemisphere view of the Moon Phase on this web site i.e. "Australian Amateur Astronomy" website.

Is there a way of changing the "Current View" to the southern hemisphere on this site??