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Birthday · June 5, 2015

Green Flash at Moonrise

June 5, 2015

Your birthday is not just a date on a calendar. It is the yearly return of a moment when the universe became more observant, more feeling,...

Green Flash at Moonrise

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APOD published June 5, 2015. Credit: El Cielo de Canarias. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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Green Flash at Moonrise

Original APOD · June 5, 2015

Follow a sunset on a clear day against a distant horizon and you might glimpse a green flash just as the Sun disappears, the sunlight briefly refracted over a long sight-line through atmospheric layers. You can spot a green flash at sunrise too. Pinpointing the exact place and time to see the rising Sun peeking above the horizon is a little more difficult though, and it can be harder still to catch a green flash from the fainter rising Moon. But well-planned snapshots did record a green flash at the Full Moon's upper edge on June 2nd, from the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the Canary Island of La Palma. Looking a little south of due east, this long telephoto view finds the rising Moon above mountains and a sea of clouds. In sunlit profile are the mountaintop Teide Observatory telescope domes on the island of Tenerife some 143 kilometers away.

Image credit: El Cielo de Canarias

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