Is the moon visible during the day?

Perhaps not all people are aware of this. Life brought me together with people for whom the suddenly discovered Moon in the daytime sky became the discovery of mature years – “This can’t be, but here it is!”

Not in any season and not all phases of the moon are easy to notice in the daytime sky. Thin lunar crescents are always close to the Sun, and very faded. In winter, the day is short, and the daytime Moon is likely to be very low – hiding behind houses or trees.

But in summer, the daytime Moon is just a gift – it shines high in the sky, the sky is often clear, the day is long, and the mood is good … although anything can happen.

Not infrequently I heard or read questions about the Moon: “If the moon is made of stone, how can it glow so brightly?! – not otherwise, it is artificial … “

But let’s think

Stones are also different.

Those stones that make up the Moon are quite dark. They reflect from 7 to 12% of sunlight – just like asphalt. Or like a cobblestone with which roads are paved – Red Square, for example, was paved with such a cobblestone.

Those areas of the Moon that are lighter – they are closer to asphalt in albedo (as scientists call the ability of celestial bodies to reflect light) – they reflect 12% of sunlight.

The lunar seas (dark spots on the lunar face – there is no water in them – this is the frozen lava of lunar volcanoes, long extinct – it covers the lowlands of the lunar landscape for billions of years) closer to the Kremlin cobblestones – reflect only 7% of the sunlight that fell on them. By the way, lunar lava consists of basalts, like cobblestone – almost the same natural material.

And now remember how we screw up our eyes on a summer afternoon from bright asphalt if we forgot our sunglasses at home. It turns out that even 7 or 12% of scattered sunlight is a lot. And if the Moon is observed at night, then it is not surprising that its light literally blinds the eyes.

By the way, when observing the Moon in a strong telescope, astronomers use special filters that darken the moonlight – so as not to damage the retina, because at night the pupil of the eye is dilated and captures a much larger light flux than during the day, and thanks to this we can see objects, shadows, silhouettes at night. darkness.

The rest of the pics are here: https://klimkovsky-music.blogspot.com/2022/06/daymoon.html

There are a lot of them – there’s no way to upload them here …