#Giorgia Hofer

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Long Night Moon: On the night of December 15, the Full Moon was bright. Known to some as the Cold Moon or the Long Night Moon, it was the closest Full Moon to the northern winter solstice and the last Full Moon of 2024. This Full Moon was also at a major lunar standstill. A major lunar standstill is an extreme in the monthly north-south range of moonrise and moonset caused by the precession of the Moon's orbit over an 18.6 year cycle. As a result, the full lunar phase was near the Moon's northernmost moonrise (and moonset) along the horizon. December's Full Moon is rising in this stacked image, a composite of exposures recording the range of brightness visible to the eye on the northern winter night. Along with a colorful lunar corona and aircraft contrail this Long Night Moon shines in a cold sky above the rugged, snowy peaks of the Italian Dolomites. Image Credit & Copyright: Giorgia Hofer and Dario Giannobile (Pictores caeli)

* * * *

Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch.

- Annie Dillard (Thanks Candace Chellew )

[aladira]

©2023.11.03 NASA / Giorgia Hofer

[apod]

2024 December 20

The Long Night Moon Image Credit & Copyright: Giorgia Hofer and Dario Giannobile (Pictores caeli)

Explanation: On the night of December 15, the Full Moon was bright. Known to some as the Cold Moon or the Long Night Moon, it was the closest Full Moon to the northern winter solstice and the last Full Moon of 2024. This Full Moon was also at a major lunar standstill. A major lunar standstill is an extreme in the monthly north-south range of moonrise and moonset caused by the precession of the Moon's orbit over an 18.6 year cycle. As a result, the full lunar phase was near the Moon's northernmost moonrise (and moonset) along the horizon. December's Full Moon is rising in this stacked image, a composite of exposures recording the range of brightness visible to the eye on the northern winter night. Along with a colorful lunar corona and aircraft contrail this Long Night Moon shines in a cold sky above the rugged, snowy peaks of the Italian Dolomites.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241220.html

[mooneptuno]

Red Aurora over Italy

Image credit and copyright: Giorgia Hofer

[morgenlich]

The da Vinci Glow (NASA astronomy picture of the day; image credit and copyright Giorgia Hofer)

A 26 hour old Moon poses behind the craggy outline of the Italian Dolomites in this twilight mountain and skyscape. The one second long exposure was captured near moonset on March 30. And while only a a sliver of its sunlit surface is visible, most of the Moon's disk can be seen by earthshine as light reflected from a bright planet Earth illuminates the lunar nearside. Also known as the Moon's ashen glow, a description of earthshine in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth's oceans illuminating the Moon's dark surface was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. Of course earthshine is just the most familiar example of planetshine, the faint illumination of the dark portion of a moon by light reflected from its planet

[deenemaan]

And the moon - We have determined for it phases, until it returns [appearing] like the old date stalk.

Surah Yaseen Ayat 39

A composite photo of the position and phases of the moon over 28 days, each photo taken at the same time each day at the same exact place. [Photo by Giorgia Hofer Photography]

[of-stars-and-dust]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2025 April 3

The Da Vinci Glow

Image Credit & Copyright: Giorgia Hofer

Explanation: A 26 hour old Moon poses behind the craggy outline of the Italian Dolomites in this twilight mountain and skyscape. The one second long exposure was captured near moonset on March 30. And while only a a sliver of its sunlit surface is visible, most of the Moon's disk can be seen by earthshine as light reflected from a bright planet Earth illuminates the lunar nearside. Also known as the Moon's ashen glow, a description of earthshine in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth's oceans illuminating the Moon's dark surface was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. Of course earthshine is just the most familiar example of planetshine, the faint illumination of the dark portion of a moon by light reflected from its planet.

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

NASA Official: Amber Straughn

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation

& Michigan Tech. U.

[nlockett]

APOD November 6, 2023 Red Aurora over Italy What was that red glow on the horizon last night? Aurora. Our unusually active Sun produced a surface explosion a few days ago that sent out a burst of electrons, protons, and more massive charged nuclei. This coronal mass ejection (CME) triggered auroras here on Earth that are being reported unusually far south in Earth's northern hemisphere. For example, this was the first time that the astrophotographer captured aurora from her home country of Italy. Additionally, many images from these auroras appear quite red in color. In the featured image, the town of Comelico Superiore in the Italian Alps is visible in the foreground, with the central band of our Milky Way galaxy seen rising from the lower left. What draws the eye the most, though, is the bright red aurora on the far right. The featured image is a composite with the foreground and background images taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location. Aurora Album: Selected images sent in to APOD © Giorgia Hofer

[evilgrrl]

Moon Phases

A composite photo of the position and phases of the moon over 28 days, each photo taken at the same exact location each day. 

Photo: Giorgia Hofer Photography

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jupiter by Moonlight: That bright beacon you've seen rising in the east just after sunset is Jupiter. Climbing high in midnight skies, our Solar System's ruling gas giant was at its 2023 opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky, on November 2. But only a few days earlier, on October 28, the Moon was at its own opposition. Then both Full Moon and Jupiter could share this telephoto field of view. The celestial scene is composed from two exposures, one long and one short, blended to record bright planet and even brighter Moon during that evening's partial lunar eclipse. Moonlight shining through the thin, high clouds over northern Italy creates the colorful iridescence and lunar corona. Look closely and you'll also spot some of Jupiter's Galilean moons. Image Credit & Copyright: Giorgia Hofer

[Robert Scott Horton]

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« Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen; they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flesh of tattered flags kindling in the doom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour [...].

The nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees plunge and bend and their leaves fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered with them and they lie packed in gutters and choke rain pipes and scatter damp paths. Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself [...]. Almost it would appear that it is useless in such confusion to ask the night those questions as to what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the sleeper from his bed to seek an answer. »

— Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

[thanks 'exhaled-spirals']

[seemsnotstilish]

APOD: The Moon and Jupiter over the Alps (2019 Sep 02) Copyright: Giorgia Hofer (Cortina Astronomical Association)

[apod]

2025 April 3

The Da Vinci Glow Image Credit & Copyright: Giorgia Hofer

Explanation: A 26 hour old Moon poses behind the craggy outline of the Italian Dolomites in this twilight mountain and skyscape. The one second long exposure was captured near moonset on March 30. And while only a a sliver of its sunlit surface is visible, most of the Moon's disk can be seen by earthshine as light reflected from a bright planet Earth illuminates the lunar nearside. Also known as the Moon's ashen glow, a description of earthshine in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth's oceans illuminating the Moon's dark surface was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. Of course earthshine is just the most familiar example of planetshine, the faint illumination of the dark portion of a moon by light reflected from its planet.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250403.html

[mooneptuno]

Long Night Moon

Image Credit and Copyright:

Giorgia Hofer and Dario Giannobile

[entertainmentnerdly]

A Lunar Corona over Turin Credit & Copyright: Giorgia Hofer (Cortina Astronomical Association) via /r/spaceporn https://ift.tt/303hW3H

[susieporta]

LA DANZA DELLA LUNA

Una bellissima foto di Giorgia Hofer che racchiude 28 scatti dallo stesso punto.

[dudewhoabides]

A composite photo of the position and phases of the moon over 28 days, each photo taken at the same exact location each day. photography by Giorgia Hofer Photography