[Stones] Callanish visit for the moon skim

[Gerald Ponting]

Hello all

My plans are now finalised, and I shall be in the Callanish area for three days, arriving late on Saturday 10th amd leaving early on Wednesday 14th June. John O'Brian will be travelling with me and we hope to meet up with several others ... Littlestone, Krista and Eileen have all said that they hope to be there ... anyone else? We must make a firm arrangement to meet up.



I know that there has been some doubt about which nights are 'best' for the southern moon skim, and I've realised that there were some errors and confusions in the table on my site at http://home.clara.net/gponting/page42. (Not least the fact that the BST timings are 2 hours out - I subtracted from GMT when I should have added. Doh!  This has now been corrected.)



Some of the confusion is no doubt due to the fact that if the date for due south is soon after midnight, you need to stay up to see the moon rise, late on the previous day! On the TMA forum there has been some discussion about the advantages of June or July, and there will be some of the TMA contributors there on both dates. In fact, I get the impression that it might be quite crowded. There is an American 'Sacred Sites tour' scheduled - see http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/scot1.htm (Their Day 8 is the 11th June)



To clear things up (I hope), there is very little to choose between the nights of 11th/12th June and 9th/10th July. The moon is a little lower in July, it's marginally (probably not observably) closer to Full in June. The moon is only slightly higher on June 12th/13th and on July 8th/9th - so in either month you get two consecutive nights for a chance of clear skies.  Go in June if you are prepared to stay up half the night and have it fully dark; go in July if you don't mind a little post-sunset light still in the sky, but want to get some kip earlier!  Late September is the nearest to the true southern extreme, so the moon's at its lowest, but it's a half moon in daylight - not exactly spectacular. (June is also a good time to go to Lewis if, as I do, you hope to photograph some of the wild flowers on the machair.)

 

I look forward to meeting any other 'megalithic enthusiasts' at Callanish around June 10th-13th. Those going may be interested in this page http://www.jill-smith.co.uk/events.html  

Those not going might like to keep an eye on Victor's webcam http://www.iol.ie/~geniet/callanish

 

Gerald

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Gerald Ponting
Writer, Publisher, Photographer, Lecturer
Hampshire, England
gponting at clara.net
http://home.clara.net/gponting/
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