New Moon, when the Moon and the Sun is in conjunction. At this time we can't see the Moon, its between us and the Sun. Some perceive this exact conjunction as the dark of the moon and the actual New Moon, the moment we can see it's first slither of a crescent. If we could see the location of the Sun & the Moon in terms of the surrounding constellations we would see its in the Pisces constellation symbolised as 2 fish swimming in different directions, the big V between which the Sun and Moon are nestled. Venus is not far away, but of course we can't really see this either. The moon is indicated by the red cross hairs and the black spot.
If you have come across references to this months new moon being in Aries, this source must have been using astrology software instead of astronomy sources. Please google precession of the equinoxes or vedic astrology & the moving point to understand more about this. Although I think I shall tackle this in a blogpost sometime soon I haven't resolved all the kinks yet. Its an obvious difference when looking at the Full Moon, because you can quite literally look at the full moon, not only can we not see the Moon during its new phase we can't see the surrounding constellations either. But you can now, thanks to the beauty of technology, this picture was a screenshot from Stellarium program a free download availble from Stellarium.org. Please follow the astronomical link on the right column to find out more about this program. It's an easy to use desktop astronomy prgram which will enable you to understand so much more about astronomy than just looking at the night sky (which of course is my favourite bit!) There are also a number of iPhone applications which will fill you in on so much about astronomy, even while you're out and about.
Enjoy your New Moon, look out for the first slither!
No comments:
Post a Comment