STAIRCASE TO THE MOON
Broome is a small town in North Western Australia (17.9619° S, 122.2361° E)
Broome and most of what is know as the Pilbara/Kimberly region has a phenomenon know as "Staircase to the moon"
It occurs when a full Moon rises over the mud flats on a very low tide to create an optical illusion of a staircase leading to the moon.
I have witnessed this several times myself and it is truly a magnificent sight.
The first time i saw the Staircase to the Moon I wasn't sure what to look for. There were hundreds of people standing there looking out to the ocean and i was thinking to myself "Where is the Moon".
Then i saw this red glow starting to appear over the horizon.
I realized we were looking for a rising moon, I have always just seen it up in the sky and never really considered that the Moon would rise just as the Sun would.
Its obvious now but have you ever heard someone say "What a lovely moon rise tonight"?
I certainly hadn't.
Below are just a few pictures but I suggest looking here to see more.
The Staircase occurs every month from March to October for 3 consecutive days.
The times listed on the below information website so locals and tourists can view it are extremely accurate.
http://www.australiasnorthwest.com/…/staircase-to-the-moon-…
I would like to analyse what is actually happening . I've chosen the second event in 2016, being March 25th starting at 19:11 as it would be in the middle of the full moon phase for the month.
Below are several screen shots from software called Stellarium.
This gives us an Earth based perspective.
It appears to be very accurate as it shows the moon just visible on the horizon at 19:11 and rising to approximately the position shown in the image "Shortly after moon rise" by 19:45.
To get a perspective on the location of the moon i looked at timeanddate.com
timeanddate.com shows that moon rise occurs at 19:11 at 98 degrees East with 98.7% illumination. Info here
The moon and sun position map below shows the moon in between South America and Australia .
Info here
There is also a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse visible from Broome on March 23rd. Info here
Lets look at a solar system perspective to get a better understanding of the moons position.
The screen shots below from Solar System Scope (SSS) are set on March 25th at 19:11 which is the confirmed time for moon rise at Broome.
Image 1- The red dot indicates Broomes location.
from this perspective the moon appears as it would be visible.
Image 2- Broome is not visible from this angle
Image 3- From this perspective it can be seen that the moon is over the Pacific Ocean between South America and New Zealand.
This confirms the moon position shown on timeanddate.com
Note thatAustralia is not visible.
Image 4- The view on the left is from the moon to the Earth. The image on the right is with no adjustment to angles but simply zoomed in to the Earth from the moons perspective
Again, Australia is not visible.
Solar system Scope is embedded below so you can verify the above or watch the flash video below SSS for a live recording of my example above.
If Flash is not available on your device download and play the mp4 file
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Staircase 1.mp4 Size : 25508.277 Kb Type : mp4 |
So how accurate is Solar System Scope?
Below is a Screen shot from Solar System Scopes "Sun and Moon" model .
The moon is shown as 1 degree below the horizon at 19:11 with an angle of 98 degrees to Broomes position
This is also reflected on timeanddate.com.
I would consider this very accurate as by 19:16, as shown in the second screen shot the moon is 1 degree above the horizon which would aslo agree fairly well with Stellarium
Solar System Scopes Day Light Map model places Australia in darkness and the Sun directly over Africa which agrees with timeanddate.com
Just to confirm SSS i also used software called "Celestia"
Celestia allows a split screen view and also has a "look back" function.