The full August moon, called the Sturgeon or Red Moon, will roll its cyclopean eye around the heavens tonight, beaming from the east around the time of sunset and lighting your path until dawn. Stare it back in the face while you're out for an evening stroll.
I'll never forget an evening long ago when my good friend Rick looked up at the moon and started singing "when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore" from the classic Dean Martin tune "That's Amore": Since he tends to be on the serious side, I had to chuckle when he burst out in song.
And who can deny that the broad white cratered plains look like so much mozzarella sprinkled around the dark, sausage-like forms of the lunar seas?
Large areas of the U.S. are experiencing typical hazy summer skies from dust, humidity and forest fires this August, making the moon look paler than usual especially at moonrise.
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Sorry, couldn't resist. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis sing "That's Amore" If you're one of the lucky ones to have a deep blue sky tonight, you'll see the moon crest the horizon on schedule. Many of us will have to wait a few minutes for the moon to first clear the haze. I suspect it will look ghostly orange for a time until it rises high enough for its true brilliance to show. Click HERE and key in your location to find the time of moonrise.
Last night the hazy atmosphere served as an ideal filter for observing the nearly full moon through the telescope. Normally its glare is intense - you walk away from the scope blinded in one eye, practically stumbling. Not yesterday. The thick air made the moon easy on the eyes and tinted the lunar globe the color of September straw.
