Internet Project

Simultaneously Photographing of the Moon
and Determining its Distance

The idea to this project has been born on the festival Physics On Stage in Geneva, November 2000.

Another document (in German) related to this project is due to A. Hänel, Osnabrück. You can find it here.

The earth as seen from the moon, December 9th, 2000, 22.00 UT. Pictures due to the other times you can get here: 22.30 UT, 23.00 UT, 23.30 UT and 24.00 UT
or, twice as large, here: 22.00 UT, 22.30 UT, 23.00 UT, 23.30 UT and 24.00 UT

In December 2000, several groups of physics teachers, pupils and amateur astronomers from Europe (Portugal, Tenerive, Bulgaria, Sweden, Finnland and Germany) and South Africa (Namibia) agreed upon taking simultaneous pictures of the moon. Besides forming new contacts and getting acquainted with internet collaboration, the main goals of the project are the following:

to "see" the distinct orientations of the photographers, that means, to observe the spherical shape of the earth,
to get a visual impression of the finite distance of the moon by observing its parallactic motion and
to evaluate the pictures in order to get a measure of the distance of the moon.

During this project, pictures have been taken on the following dates:

December 9th, 2000 (this document)
January 6th, 2001
January 9th, 2001: Eclipse of the moon
March 1st, 2001
March 29rst, 2001
November 3rd, 2001: Occultation of Saturn

This document contains the pictures of December 9th.You can view them full sized by clicking on them!

The other pictures you can find in the related documents.

First evaluations and some results of this project are contained in additional documents.

December 9th, 2000

Some pictures from Osnabrück, Germany (52°13'19.9" N, 8°00'36.1" E)
(Andreas Hänel)

21.01 UT, ca. 150 mm 21.16 UT (one minute late), ca. 150 mm 21.31 UT, ca. 150 mm 21.46 UT, ca. 150 mm
Some pictures from Wissen, Germany (50°47'11" N, 07°43'06" E)
(Peter Stinner)

19.30 UT, semi-fisheye 21.20 UT, semi-fisheye

21.00 UT, 135 mm 21.15 UT, 135 mm 22.00 UT, 135 mm 23.00 UT, 135 mm
Some pictures from Koblenz, Germany (50°11'02" N, 07°32'16" E)
(Udo Backhaus)

21.00 UT, 24 mm
Orion is visible! 21.45 UT, 24 mm

21.00 UT, 135 mm 21.15 UT, 100 mm 21.45 UT, 135 mm 22.32 UT, 135 mm
One picture from Süderdeich, Germany (54°12'04" N, 08°54'36" E)
(Hans-Christian Zapp)

22.30 UT, 135 mm
Some pictures from Smolyan, Bulgaria (41°32' N, 24°45' E)
(Vania Zamanova)

16.00 UT, 50mm

21.00 UT, 135 mm 21.15 UT, 100 mm 21.30 UT, 135 mm 22.15 UT, 135 mm
Some pictures from Tenerife, Spain (28°29' N, 16°19' W)
(Federico Fernandéz)

21.00 UT, 135 mm 21.15 UT, 100 mm 21.30 UT, 135 mm 21.45 UT, 135 mm
Some pictures from Windhoek, Namibia (22°41'53" S, 17°06'35" E)
(Sonja Itting-Enke)

21.15 UT, 135 mm 21.30 UT, 135 mm 22.00 UT, 135 mm 22.30 UT, 135 mm
Some other pictures from Namibia (22°28'43" S, 14°56'59" E)
(Eberhard von Grumbkow)

21.00 UT, 135 mm 22.30 UT, 135 mm