The Many Faces Of The Hunter's Moon

-->

October's Full Moon is called the Hunter's Moon because it provided light to the early Native Americans to hunt their prey in preparation for the coming winter months. Actually the September, October and November Moons hang high and long in the Northern Hemisphere's night sky for a couple of reasons.

One is because of our changing seasons the Earth's Northern Hemisphere is starting to point away from the Sun and towards the Moon during it's Full Moon Phase, the Moon is opposite the Sun in the sky at this time, and two, the Moon's orbit around the Earth during these months favors the Northern Hemisphere.

So I was able to image the Moon from daytime, to evening wispy clouds, to cloudy skies, to clear skies, all in one night.

Winter is fast approaching as well for the Phoenix Lander. The lander is now working on it's 145 Martian day and is slowly loosing the Sun's energy it needs to power it's instruments as the Sun is setting earlier every day behind the horizon. The lander's robotic arm delivered yet another sample to one of it's ovens for analysis , they are trying to get as much done before the lander finally shuts down. The Phoenix Lander has accomplished a lot, from it's rocket landing, to studying the climate of Mars and seeing falling snow for the first time on another celestial body to actually finding ice water, an extremely successful mission.

I'll leave you with a clip I put together of the October Full Moon Rise, comprised of 126 images over a real time frame of 10 minutes.