The Pleiades Will Get Mooned On The 10th Of December!

Originally published: December 8, 2008

In an earlier post I mentioned the Moon was trying to cut into Jupiter 's tango dance with Venus, well it gave up and is waltzing with the Pleiades instead. On December 10th the moon will be tracking thru the star cluster and don't miss it because it will be an amazing sight. I get excited when the Moon or a planet visits a star cluster because in the eyepiece it's really pretty. But he better keep his hands to himself because there are 6 stars in the cluster if you can cut some of the glare from the Moon . You can do that by using your moon filter.

The Moon will be nearly full with 97 % of it illuminated. If you do not have a filter to cut the glare use high magnification in your telescope to keep most of the lunar glare out of the field of view. Along the east coast, the occultation's of the clusters stars begin around 2:45 am EST, and just before 11pm PST in the west. And the dance will continue for about 2 hours.

Ouch!My feet hurt just thinking about it ! Now upon research with my astronomers program it will last 2 hours as you can see by the pics I have created for you above, while other sources tell me 40 minutes at 12:30 am.

This is where I get driven to give you the right info. Depending on where you are in the world is what I found out. In the west of America/Canada where it is 2- 3 hours earlier than in the East is the difference in times. So the correct time is 12:30 am for the West, 2:30 Am for the east. People have been emailing me confised about the time. So now you have it.

Along with the sight there are craters along the edge of the Moon to explore. So you have a double dipped delight to watch! Here is a great moon crater site. On the very next day, the moon is full and will be at its closest to the Earth for the year at 221,560 miles.