dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (10/18/86)
The daytime moon -- when we come back. October 18 The Daytime Moon Starting early next week, you can look for a familiar object -- at a time of day you might not expect to see it. It's the moon -- which will be very easy to see in the daytime sky -- in the hours both before and after sunrise. Yesterday the moon was full. Now it's waning toward last quarter. The lighted portion of the lunar surface that's turned in our direction appears as less than full -- but more than half lighted. We call such a moon "gibbous". The word gibbous means hunchback -- not an especially attractive term for such a pretty celestial sight. Again, you'll see this gibbous moon in the morning -- in the west, about to set -- maybe when you're driving to work this coming week. The moon is often visible in the daytime if you know where to look. Look for it during the next few mornings. If it's not cloudy you'll see the moon pale and luminous against the blue western sky. Eighteen years ago this month, people on our world were doing more than looking at the moon. They were preparing to go to it. The first Apollo mission -- Apollo Seven -- blasted off in October, 1968. Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham successfully tested the operation of the command module -- where the crew would live on the way to the moon -- and the service module containing the propulsion system and "consumables" for the crew. It was an eleven day mission -- which never left Earth orbit. Nonetheless, it set the pattern of success which carried the Apollo project through to its successful landings on the moon. Script by Diana Hadley and Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin