Streaming cameras on MaunaKea in Hawaii show the abundance of satellites trailing across the sky making astronomy a challenge. I recorded two one-minute exposures from my computer screen to illustrate the problem. Follow this link for more details.
What will the Moon look like on any date in 2026? What will it look like on your birthday? Find out at NASA Dial-a-Moon. An example of what you will see is pictured below for 10 January 2026. Various 2026 dates will give a different phase of the Moon. Use the following links to set dates and see views for readers in the northern hemisphere and for the southern hemisphere. Enter any month and day to see a high definition image. You may leave the universal time (UT) hour at the default value. If you want to be more precise, your local-to-Universal time conversion can be done at this link. Or, type ‘universal time’ into Google. Go back to Dial-a-Moon to enter the UT.
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After visiting Dial-a-Moon, scan down that web page for a wealth of additional information about the Moon’s motions and appearance. The images of Dial-a-Moon are made from those of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in low altitude orbit around the Moon since 2009.
We have a glass prism mounted on the sill of a south wall. During the winter months it casts a spectrum on the wall on the opposite side of the room.
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As the sun descends approaching the solstice, the spectrum is cast higher on the wall. Here it is in early December very near the cold air return register.
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Today, now in mid-December, my wife noticed it was cast directly on the register grating.
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The opening for the register also returns air from a walk-in closet on the opposite side of this wall. We hurried into the darkened closet and looked on the wall opposite its register and found this. Great catch, dear.
Set up a camera pointed due south in the northern hemisphere. Don’t move it over the course of a year. Have it make a photograph every clear day at noon. During the year you should notice the sun is highest in the sky in the summer months and lowest in the winter. You might also notice a slight left-right position change for the sun in the photos. For the northern hemisphere, the sun travels a little faster in orbit during winter and a little slower in summer due to the eccentricity of the orbit. It isn’t a perfect circle. That affects the time the sun reaches due south. By overlaying all of the images, they form a figure eight called the analemma.
I wanted to try to create an analemma by gathering images over the course of a year. My camera consisted of this coffee can and a sheet of 5×7 Ilford photographic paper. The paper was installed inside the can and held in place by two strong magnets. The aperture and shutter was a pinhole covered by the magnet on the right side of the can. At a specific time near noon, the magnet was moved to uncover the pinhole and expose a spot on the photopaper. The pinhole was covered again with the magnet after 4 minutes of exposure. The process was repeated every 2-3 weeks during the year.
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It was essential that my camera not move during the year. I put it into this tray with some heavy weight in the bottom. I used strips of cloth to tie it down to the floor of the deck.
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Here are two views inside the camera can at the end of the year of exposures. One of the two small magnets is visible that held the paper in place. You can also see the pinhole covered and uncovered on the front of the can.
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The entire sheet of photopaper was removed and put on a flatbed scanner. Small round shadows of the two magnets that held the paper in place are white circles on the upper left and right. Each dot is a 4 minute exposure. Some are more distinct made on very clear day. Some are fuzzy made on days with filtered light from clouds. One exposure was about 20 minutes long. I got distracted that day and forgot to cover the pinhole again. The dots at the top are from exposures near the winter solstice. Dots toward the bottom are near the summer solstice.
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Perhaps you can make out a sort of figure-8 shape one would expect for an analemma. For comparison, I borrowed a high quality photo from someone in Greece. They used a digital camera. I rotated and resized their analemma to orient it the same as mine. I was pleased with my result considering my crude equipment and technique.
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If you are interested, I have three other post about the analemma: On a wall in my house, using a 24/7 online camera, and solar vs lunar.
Thanks for reading.
The interstate highway system was completed in 1992 after many years of construction at a cost of nearly $300 billion dollars in today’s money. The companies pushing for AI to be a big part of our lives are investing in data centers, software, and other infrastructures. The projected cost is estimated to be nearly $1 trillion dollars in the next 3-5 years. That is at least 3x the cost of the interstate highway system. Kind of puts that investment into perspective. It is a lot of money. (fyi…the AI ChatGPT was used to gather those numbers)
How I See It 
