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This week’s episode of the SETI radio show "Are We Alone" is up, featuring Seth Shostak and me slapping Moon Hoax believers around a bit. It also has fun bits about Full Moon Madness and other lunar, uh, lunacies. Here’s the direct link to the MP3, and if I haven’t screwed it up here is where you can subscribe to it via iTunes.
I love doing these with Seth. We always have fun. Someday we’ll have to post out outtakes…
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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July 8th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I never noticed that reflection in the visor before. Must be another one of those NASA cover-ups, having pasted in a fake astronaut reflection.
July 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Speaking of full moon, the very recent one looked very beautiful, like always. ^_^ For some reason, in the area I live in, it displayed a yellow cheese color. Maybe moons are made out of cheese!
July 8th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
IBY, the moon may not be but moon hoaxer literature sure is.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Full moons DO drive me crazy. They mean I can’t be out at the observatory gathering data. Stupid flood light in the sky…
July 8th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Full moons have always caused problems for me … mainly because I don’t have a telescope and it really bugs me, so I have to stand there, squinting, trying to see cool stuff.
I really need to get a telescope.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
That picture is obviously a fake. No alien would dare to approach with Dr. Manhattan standing guard.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I remember being at a star party a year ago and we were all waiting till 1 am to wait for the full moon to set so we could see the other unearthly stuff. It was a bit like me hoping for a blackout in my city…unsullied night skies!
Yes, please do post the outtakes!
July 8th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Someday we’ll have to post out outtakes…
PLEASE DO!
July 8th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
The other night while driving home the full moon was shinning through some light clouds, that is only thing in the night sky I have in about a month.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
@Nevy C
If it was a full moon, it didn’t set at 1 AM.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Not as loony as this!
July 8th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I was listening to one of those late night kook shows last night (George Nori is the host I believe). Just as I flipped it on his guest said something like “we landed on the moon, there is no conspiracy there, we did it” and I thought it was a little odd, considering the show. Then he went on to say “the conspiracy here is the coverup of all the manmade structures they found when they got there”.
A new twist on an old favourite.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
@Jeremy
hmm why is that? Perhaps it was at the gibbous phase then?
July 8th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
13. Nevy C Says: “hmm why is that?”
Because a full moon implies that it is directly opposite the sun in the sky. This means that the full moon rises right at sunset and sets at sunrise.
- Jack
July 8th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
@Jack: I see…all I remember was that it was very bright away from the city so I guess I assumed it was a full moon!
July 8th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Are We Alone is wonderful on many levels. It’s where I first heard of you Phil and this blog (and now it’s a daily read). Seth and Molly are great and as entertaining as they are educational. Thanks for the many memorable “Skeptical Sundays.”
July 8th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Seth and Phil get along so well because their humour has the same
PUNch line.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I’m listening to the radio show, and I’m thinking… wow! these moon-hoax believers actually need to be told their not standing on the Moon, and that they were looking at photos with short-exposures. Omg, I wouldn’t have the patience with this idiots if they can’t understand the basics.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Nevy – If it’s the only source of light around, it’s going to seem extremely bright to dark adapted eyes (or even partially adapted) even if only half the disc is illuminated.
If the moon set around 1 AM as you mentioned, that means that it was slightly gibbous. A first quarter moon (only the right half illuminated) rises around noon and sets around midnight. The moon rises and sets approximately 1 hour later every day, so a moon setting at 1 AM would be one day past first quarter. This, of course, assumes you are on Standard Time and not Daylight Saving Time. DST pushed the clock ahead an hour, so a 1 AM setting would actually be midnight in “real” time, and therefore right on first quarter.
I hope that isn’t TMI
- Jack
July 9th, 2009 at 2:55 am
I look forward to the day when I won’t have to read about these Moon Hoax people on Bad Astronomy anymore.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:47 am
dhtroy, I think that Phil may have mentioned a pretty reasonably-priced telescope a while back… ;-D
https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/
July 9th, 2009 at 10:07 am
@Jack – ah thanks!
I’m hoping for a new moon at the next star party – no chance of my going loony over the precise phase.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
@Jack and Nevy C:
Last year’s July full Moon fell on the 18th. If Nevy C lives far enough north (e.g. northernmost Alaska), then the Moon might very well have set at 1:00 a.m.! I found that from a location about 200 km ESE of Fairbanks, AK, the full Moon would indeed have set at 1:00 a.m. on 7/18/2008.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
23. Chris A. Says: “@Jack and Nevy C: Last year’s July full Moon fell on the 18th. If Nevy C lives far enough north (e.g. northernmost Alaska), then the Moon might very well have set at 1:00 a.m.! I found that from a location about 200 km ESE of Fairbanks, AK, the full Moon would indeed have set at 1:00 a.m. on 7/18/2008.”
Interesting, but it still confirms what I said about the full moon setting at sunrise!
Somehow I don’t think many star parties would be held near the Arctic Circle in the middle of summer!
- Jack
July 9th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
And well received by my PUN-y mind.
July 9th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Call me a Broadway nerd, but am I the only one who thought the music at the start of this podcast sounds suspiciously like the beginning of the song “You’ll See Boys” from RENT?
Yeah, I thought so
July 9th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
@Chris, Jack – I live in Canada and yes, where I live (Ontario – nowhere near the Arctic Circle!), we do have star parties in the summer!
I’m off to listen to Are We Alone.
July 11th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
It looks so real.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Phil if you are not going to teach the controversy, you can’t call yourself a “scientist.”
Everyone knows the so-called moon landing was reincarnated in a sound studio in Arizona!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
Stick to your geeky little telescopes and don’t try fooling us Joe the Plumbers who have to make a living in the real world.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
[...] Plait linked to an episode of the Are We Alone? radio podcast, which I enjoyed very much. I intend to listen to [...]