moon

A 22° Halo on Christmas Day Night

There has been much ado about the rare Christmas Day full moon we’re experiencing this year. It’s something that hasn’t happened before in my lifetime, and won’t happen again for almost 20 years, so it’s a pretty cool event. When I looked out the window tonight, though, I certainly wasn’t expecting to see this:

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A 22° halo is not a rare event in itself, but seeing one on Christmas Day, when there is a rare full moon in the sky, seems like a pretty exciting happening to me!

Quote of the Day

“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’

Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.” From JFK’s “Moon Speech”

Quote of the Day

“I sometimes catch myself looking up at the Moon, remembering the changes of fortune in our long voyage, thinking of the thousands of people who worked to bring the three of us home. I look up at the Moon and wonder, when will we be going back, and who will that be?” Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell in Apollo 13

Quote of the Day

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”  John F. Kennedy