The Confounded Moon?

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Hello everyone, I have a bit of a doozy feel today to ponder…

If you take a time lapse of the moon from moonrise to moonset, you will find by following the aptly named Tycho Crater is shifting, the entire moon is rotating in the sky.

In fact, so is the sun if you track sunspots, and all the other luminaries as well.

The earliest evidence I have found of this seems to be approx 2017.

I know the luminaries are all magnetically locked (like those cool superconductor magnet tracks you can do in a physics lab)

Here is a link to earth.nullschool.net - a 3D map of many data feeds. Take note of the “wind speed” (ion speed) at the 10hPa level at the North Pole - extreme disturbances, and waaay off the geographic pole…yet the South Pole has virtually nothing? And the coriolis is completely broken!

How is this possible?

Any big thinkers have any ideas?

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When you say rotating you mean like different areas of the moon are rotating at different rates, akin to the plasma object called the Sun? Or you mean it’s just slightly changing perspective as the Moon goes by?

If it’s the latter, I think that’s a known phenomenon of perspective. It is tidally locked to what you can call a center but as the Moon “passes” where we are we will peek slightly around it. Not all the way to the hidden side, but yes, that should be expected. Or are you describing something else?

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Hi Matt,

I presume that what you’re referring to is what is known as the Moon’s ‘libration’, Here’s from the Earth-Sky website:


“The prominent crater Tycho provides an easy way for us to see libration in latitude. In the photo at right, notice how much farther south of Tycho you can see during a favorable libration.”

Now, for more details as to precisely why this “libration” occurs - according to the TYCHOS model - I would encourage you to read the last section of Chapter 13 of my book.

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UNDERSTANDING SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE (the Moon)

Dear all, today I wish to clarify a puzzling matter that has had many skywatchers (including myself) scratching their heads; namely, the question of our Moon’s seemingly bizarre ‘behaviour’ and apparently fluctuating tilts / orientations as viewed from Earth. To be sure, spatial perspective is a quite challenging subject matter - especially when it comes to astronomical observations, what with all its angular variables (diverse earthly locations / observational frames of reference, oscillating seasonal tilts, latitudes & longitudes of our moons and planets, etc). This present exercise will also provide another opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness of the Tychosium 3D simulator and what I like to call its “explanatory power”.

Incidentally, what follows should also be of prime interest to ‘earnest & serious flat earth proponents’ (if such individuals do indeed exist), since it has to do with our Moon’s observed orientation as viewed from different earthly locations. Please excuse my mild sarcasm, but I’ll be holding my breath and be eagerly awaiting for their attempts at justifying and account for what I am about to expound and illustrate…

The other day, I was lucky enough to find two photographs of our Moon captured on the same night (February 27, 2013) from two almost diametrically opposed locations on Earth (Hickory, USA - and Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA). Here’s where you can read about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/19lj70/the_moon_from_the_northern_and_southern_hemisphere/

Here are the original two photos snapped by the two astrophotographers located on ‘either side’ of the Earth:
(Note: for the sake of clarity and ease of orientation, I have highlighted with a red dot the Moon’s famous “Tycho crater”).

  • At left: photo by “Rustin788” on the night of February 27, 2013 - from Hickory, North Carolina (USA) located at 35.73°N, 81.34°W

  • At right: photo by “BigDeadPixel” on the night of February 27, 2013 - from Pretoria (SOUTH AFRICA) located at 25.7256°S, 28.2439°E

Now, the first question that you might ask is: "Since the two photographers were located at ‘either side’ of Earth, why aren’t the two photos tilted at 180°?

Well, this is when we need to consider and factor into the ‘perspective equation’ the different LATITUDES of the two locations - as illustrated below:

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In other words, if we should perform a thought exercise aimed at “equalizing” the perspectives of these two Moon photos, we need to take into account BOTH the inverted (by 180°) angles / earthly frames of reference of the two photographers - AND the angular width between the latitudes of their earthly locations which amounts to : 35.73°+ 25.7256° = 61.4556°

In my below graphic, I have done just that:

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As you can see, as we judiciously ‘compensate’ for the two photographers’ locations, we may say that they actually snapped near-identical pictures of our Moon - only slightly displaced laterally, due to the longitudinal difference between their frames of reference in the USA and in SOUTH AFRICA (81.34°W versus 28.2439°E).

You might now ask the $1million question: “Can the Tychosium 3D simulator actually visualize precisely why these two photos show the angles / orientations of our Moon’s surface features just as they do?”

Yes indeed :

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That’s all for now, folks - hope you enjoyed this umpteenth proof of our planet’s spherical shape - flat earthers notwithstanding! :slight_smile: