[HN Gopher] Moon
___________________________________________________________________
Moon
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 1224 points
Date : 2024-12-17 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ciechanow.ski)
(TXT) w3m dump (ciechanow.ski)
| doctoboggan wrote:
| As a big fan of both the Moon and ciechanow.ski this article is
| right up my alley.
|
| During the 2024 solar eclipse I was explaining to people how an
| eclipse _must_ occur during a new moon, and this article would
| have really helped. The discussion also made me realize how
| little most people spend thinking about the solar system and the
| relationship between the moon, sun, and earth. These things
| fascinate me (I think it 's just the sheer scale of it all), and
| I hope to be able to get more people interested as well. The
| solar eclipse was great for that!
| halyconWays wrote:
| People are impressed if you can name the current moon phase and
| tell them what it'll be next. But it only takes a mental model
| of where the sun, earth, and moon orbits are relative to each
| other. I also find people are intrigued by the concept of
| earthshine, and often haven't noticed it until you point it
| out.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| > solar eclipse I was explaining to people how an eclipse must
| occur during a new moon
|
| Hey, that's the first the time I realized this.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| And a lunar eclipse only during full moon.... These
| constraints made it easier to predict eclipses in the past.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| The really satisfying thing for me was when I was on a sailing
| course and was instructed in how the moon causes the tides, and
| how the phase of the moon corresponds to springs and neaps.
| sbaner2k wrote:
| the author is different gravy
| rogual wrote:
| This is what JavaScript is for.
| halyconWays wrote:
| We like the moon! Because it is so close to us.
| buildsjets wrote:
| And now I want a hot toasty sandwich.
| wcrossbow wrote:
| The Moon also plays currently a very special role in my life and
| my work days are dictated to a large extent by the current Moon
| phase :)
|
| It's not discussed in the article but we have detailed models
| (ROLO[0] and LIME[1]) for how much light is reflected from the
| Moon and can be captured by a telescope. Like this one can
| radiometrically calibrate a telescope, that is, find a mapping
| between the digital numbers coming out from the sensor and actual
| radiance values.
|
| [0] https://www.usgs.gov/media/files/rolo-lunar-model-and-
| databa... [1] https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/24/3649/2024/
| triyambakam wrote:
| > my work days are dictated to a large extent by the current
| Moon phase
|
| Could you explain further?
| wcrossbow wrote:
| At my current employer, Kuva Space, I'm among other things
| responsible for the commisioning and in orbit calibration of
| the payload. The Moon is a major calibration target for us,
| and between waxing and waining crescents I spent a lot of
| time analyzing Moon shots to perform radiometric calibration
| and camera parameter optimizations. The Moon doesn't know
| about weekends and images are not always downlinked at the
| most convenient times so that makes my life a bit more
| hectic.
| gclawes wrote:
| Moon should be a state
| 725686 wrote:
| You might also enjoy minutephysics video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBcxuM-qXec
| guax wrote:
| Is there a name for this category of website? I am seeing content
| like this -- elaborate, animated, interactive -- more often here
| and I wonder if its part of a new corner of the internet I am not
| familiar with. Looks dope.
| rom1v wrote:
| I think this category is named ciechanow.ski.
| banannaise wrote:
| It's hypertext - a text-based format enhanced with other
| elements.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Amazing idea!
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| There are even dedicated markup and scripting languages for
| this. I predict this technology will be hot in 2025.
| simonw wrote:
| https://explorabl.es/ calls them "Explorable Explanations".
| max_ wrote:
| This is the future of STEM education.
|
| Well written, decently comprehensive interactive documents.
|
| I think such formats should be prioritised instead of textbooks
| for creating learning materials.
|
| I am really surprised almost no one is doubling down on something
| like this. Brilliant comes close, but its not at this level.
|
| Everyone in Edtech seems to be running towards AI gimmicks.
|
| Thank you Ciechanowski!
| simonw wrote:
| I've seen these called "explorables" or "explorable
| explanations" before and I really like them. I've been
| collecting notes on them here:
| https://simonwillison.net/tags/explorables/
|
| Here's the website that coined the term: https://explorabl.es/
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Thank you for collecting and sharing these. I was so
| impressed by the submission that my first thought was to find
| some repository that contains the samples of a similar
| caliber.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| This is a really nice collection. Thanks for putting them
| together. I'm very partial to this writing style as well.
|
| I took a crack at making it slightly nicer to write this
| style of blog post via markdown with codeblocks you can mark
| to execute instead of display (and hot reload + gist
| rendering support)
|
| It makes the source easy to read, even on GitHub preview,
| etc.
|
| It's what I've been using to write my recent posts.
|
| https://github.com/jasonjmcghee/mdxish
|
| But at the end of the day, content itself and the code that
| powers it is more important than any framework you might use.
| simonw wrote:
| That's a really neat system. Reminds me of Observable
| Framework, which I tried here
| https://github.com/simonw/observable-framework-
| experiments/b... to create this:
| https://simonw.github.io/observable-framework-
| experiments/pa...
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| ah ` echo` is smart - I didn't realize that would
| properly render in markdown editors / github, hence the
| comment approach.
|
| That observable system you made here sure renders
| beautifully.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I consider Kerbal Space Program to be the most rewarding game I
| have ever played. Going into this page I was already somewhat
| familiar with many of the concepts it presented because I had
| encountered them during gameplay. However, having the ability
| to modify parameters was very helpful for visualizing different
| kinds of gravity assists. The game does not provide a way to do
| this, so it augments my understanding massively.
|
| I agree that these interactive learning materials are
| incredibly promising towards actually understanding what is
| being presented. In other words, this is how I actually grok
| the concept.
| mattkevan wrote:
| Brilliant.org[1] does a good job of using explorables in their
| learning materials, some of the best I've seen in that
| category.
|
| That said, Ciechanowski is on another level entirely.
|
| [1] https://brilliant.org/
| triyambakam wrote:
| I do think that explorables are useful in understanding, but
| man I feel overwhelmed with them. I feel like I do my t know
| when and where to stop. I feel less anxious with a plain PDF or
| similar. I guess it's a skill issue.
| n42 wrote:
| > I am really surprised almost no one is doubling down on
| something like this.
|
| I've thought a lot about this - every time a new one is posted.
| I wish we could live in a world where this is STEM education. I
| think that, ultimately, it's just very high labor cost, and
| edtech is not known for being highly lucrative.
|
| Bartosz does these as a labor of love, and the world is better
| off for it.
| jcims wrote:
| This is wonderful!!! Generalizing here but we really do take the
| moon for granted.
|
| I bought a 'big ass telescope' a few years ago in an effort to
| bootstrap a hobby that I'd flirted with for decades but never
| really committed to. It's a Celestron 11" SCT and I really had no
| idea what I was getting into. When I think of space I think of
| things that are really small in the night sky, planets, galaxies,
| nebula...(turns out most of them aren't *that* small and I
| overshot the targets I had in mind)
|
| I kept trying to photo galaxies and star clusters and all of
| these exotic things but had a bunch of trouble with tracking with
| long exposures. Out of frustration I ended up just pointing it at
| the boring ol' moon to at least get used to the equipment and
| workflows.
|
| I fell in love with Luna.
|
| The magnification of this scope really allowed me to explore the
| surface in a way I never had before. I got to know the 'map' and
| suddenly related to our celestial neighbor in a whole new way. It
| was also the very first image I was actually not embarrassed to
| share - https://imgur.com/a/t9b1Uug
|
| I since then improved my knowledge and technical skill but the
| month of the moon at the end of 2021 was really pretty
| spectacular for me.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| It's a lovely shot.
| swifthesitation wrote:
| It really is a great shot. I always daydream of showing today's
| technology to the great the great minds from centuries ago. Not
| sure why, but I do.
| mettamage wrote:
| And I'm here for it! :D
| jcims wrote:
| I'm sure it's different for everyone but I think it would
| just be the unbridled enthusiasm and love for the subject
| that they would show, the tidal dopamine surge of all the
| mysteries that have been unlocked, the validation of all the
| mysteries that remain. It would be amazing.
| js2 wrote:
| An 11" SCT is a commitment to use. Do you have it on a
| permanent mount?
| jcims wrote:
| No, but i did just get a wedge so I could start tinkering
| with polar alignment.
|
| I also bought a Seestar S50 last year and have been having an
| absolute blast with it. Feels like a renaissance in astronomy
| is upon us.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Welcome to the hobby (even if a few years late). Pretty much
| everyone has the same experience as you. You buy the telescope,
| and then realize you need to buy a telescope for your telescope
| to use as a guide scope for accurate tracking for longer
| exposures.
|
| However, those long exposures are much more likely to get
| photobombed by an airplane or satellite. So you're really
| better off taking shorter exposures with the highest ISO you
| can get away with, and then just stacking them.
|
| I have a much wider scope that I can do 30s exposures unguided
| before trailing starts to become noticeable. If you can get
| away with 15s, you'd be amazed at what you can achieve with
| newer sensors.
|
| Just some hints to help the disappointment at bay and maybe get
| you playing with the toys
| amelius wrote:
| > I fell in love with Luna.
|
| Too bad advertisers will turn it into a giant Pepsi logo when
| they get the chance.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Don't do their work for them.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| It is not yet time for subsidized time.
| gowld wrote:
| Is there an information resource to find local telescope owners
| who give access to the public for viewing?
|
| (startup/app idea!)
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just search for local star parties in your area. Although, be
| willing to bend the definition of local depending on how
| light polluted your area is. My local is 4 hours away. Also,
| some colleges have viewing nights available. Even in light
| polluted areas, you can still see things for public viewings.
| They just suck for anyone wanting to image.
|
| There are tons of sites listing them, but I doubt there's an
| absolute exhaustive list as it's all self-reporting to each
| of the sites. Your app idea would just be another in a list
| of places, sort of like the xkcd app about yet another
| standard.
|
| https://www.go-astronomy.com/star-parties.htm
|
| https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/annual-
| starg...
| yread wrote:
| > turns out most of them aren't _that_ small
|
| I haven't realized Andromeda is 4x bigger than the Moon until I
| tried to take a picture of it
|
| https://mikkolaine.blogspot.com/2014/01/size-of-deep-sky-obj...
| (not my picture)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Similarly, I came to learn some selenography writing a "voxel"
| (well, ray-casting) web game ... where you shuttle about the
| moon from crater base to crater base.
|
| I became kind of fascinated with the craters, names of the
| craters (and history of those names), the "dark-side" and all
| the wild topology there. (Although I think I have tiles for the
| entire Moon, you don't have the fuel to get there.
| bradarner wrote:
| This is why the internet is amazing!
|
| Awe-inspiring. Beautiful.
|
| How does the author build these pages? Looks like it is React.
| The entire blog must be custom built, no? Or is this built on top
| of an existing CMS?
| maest wrote:
| Hand crafted, artisanal JavaScript.
| adrianh wrote:
| No React to be found (and good riddance). It's two vanilla
| JavaScript files:
|
| https://ciechanow.ski/js/base.js
|
| https://ciechanow.ski/js/moon.js
| bradarner wrote:
| Cheers...Chrome dev tools must have tricked me.
|
| Also nice that the author didn't minify it. Interesting to
| read through.
| undebuggable wrote:
| Funnily, this JavaScript would not pass through most modern
| job interviews.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| 17.6k LOC just for one post to educate and entertain people.
| Beautiful.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| You definitely don't need a CMS for a blog. I'd expect most
| HNer blogs you see here are either html files or markdown
| processed/styled into html files. I bet various templating
| solutions are popular too, which just output html files.
| akshayrajp wrote:
| wake up babe new ciechanow.ski article dropped
| xnx wrote:
| The very first interactive element is a great example of why
| ciechanow.ski is so great. Similar animations from other sources
| would probably limit to 28 frames and fake the image (using a
| simple mask). On ciechanow.ski there are hundreds(?) of frames
| and uses a bump map(?) to show accurate crater shadows on the
| moon's surface.
| parpfish wrote:
| years back i came across this moon-related modeling problem on
| stackoverflow (i'm not the original poster)[0] and it's stuck
| with me that this seems like something that should have an easy
| solution.
|
| An HN thread about how cool the moon is seems like a good place
| to resurface it.
|
| But the question is this:
|
| The crescent of the moon face is tilted based and the angle of
| that tile depends on the viewer's latitude on earth. Is there an
| equation that maps viewer latitude to the tilt of the moon
| crescent?
|
| [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22392045/calculating-
| moo...
| axus wrote:
| One thing I've noticed while looking at the Moon, the "dark" part
| is lit enough to see that it's an orb and not really being eaten
| by darkness. This webpage doesn't do that, I guess it's from a
| different perspective without the earth shining on the Moon.
| ribcage wrote:
| I often wonder if it's just my imagination or is it really like
| that. I am still not sure.
| pierrec wrote:
| I guess you alreay know this, but for reference this is caused
| by earthlight (light diffused and reflected by the earth):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight_(astronomy)
|
| Sometimes it's clearly visible, but often I agree that it's
| hard to tell if you're imagining it or not.
| jval43 wrote:
| There's a short paragraph on "earthshine" towards the end.
| RALaBarge wrote:
| Thank you, I am going to show parts of this to my daughter!
| d42muna wrote:
| This cracks me up. "Look at these beautiful orbital paths.
| Cover your eyes when it's explaining the barycenter. Cover your
| eyes!"
| edferda wrote:
| I haven't read the article but Bartosz articles are so good and
| enjoyable to read that I get excited whenever I see a new one pop
| up. I have already set some time aside tonight to read it with
| care.
|
| Bartosz if you are reading this: thank you so much for these
| articles. You truly are an inspiration and I can only hope one
| day I get to be as good a communicator as you are.
| eitau_1 wrote:
| On an unrelated note, on the Sunday we had a major lunar
| standstill i.e. the full Moon at its highest orbit (as seen from
| northern hemisphere). It happens every 18.5 years.
| empath75 wrote:
| I can't tell you how excited I get everyone time he does a new
| one of these. They have all the delight and wonder of a child's
| pop-up book, but with the depth of a college text book.
| Consistently one of the best things on the internet.
| dheera wrote:
| Related personal story:
|
| On January 6, 2023, at approximately noon, I happened to take a
| flight from Svolvaer, Norway to Bodo, Norway, which, took me from
| 21.8 degrees latitude to 22.8 degrees latitude, which took me
| from [just inside polar night] to [just inside daytime].
|
| I saw the moon at takeoff and the sun at landing.
|
| It was an absolutely miraculous, specatular coincidence -- the
| latitudes I was flying over, the time, the date, the moon phase,
| the flight path.
|
| This flight allowed me to have a full 3D view of space -- the
| moon, the Earth, the sun, all within an hour.
|
| It was the first time I felt that the moon and sun weren't just
| discs flying around the sky randomly, but rather that I was the
| one flying through space, had a 3D sense of where the moon was
| behind me and where the sun was peeking ahead of me, and that the
| Earth felt curved as I moved out of the view of the moon and into
| the view of the sun.
|
| My pictures and whiteboard illustration:
|
| https://imgur.com/TYFAdoP
| belfalas wrote:
| The moon is so interesting, easy to forget how much it affects
| life on Earth because we see it all the time.
|
| Like others in the thread, I have a telescope and it's a
| wonderful experience pointing it skyward while it's still light
| out and the moon is visible. Then I can really see all the
| craters and "pock marks" on the surface. (My telescope isn't good
| enough to be able to see anything during a full moon, it all just
| becomes washed out.)
| MaxGripe wrote:
| De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
| divbzero wrote:
| What an amazing exploration, from watching the sun set over moon
| craters in the first graphic to the simulation of how the Moon
| formed and the lucid explanations of tidal locking and axial
| precession.
|
| As with many of the author's posts, the underlying code can be an
| interesting read as well: https://ciechanow.ski/js/moon.js
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| ciechanow.ski on the frontpage? Instantly upvoted.
| siavosh wrote:
| It really is a marvel. I'm grateful society has such subject
| matter experts, that they have the technical skills to share it,
| have a passion to share it, and dedicate the time and effort to
| do so at such a level.
| mbb70 wrote:
| Bartosz Ciechanowski is a subject matter expert of everything,
| given enough time: https://ciechanow.ski/archives/. I still
| remember reading 'Gears' and being completely blown away.
| Terr_ wrote:
| There's a collection of little facts I imagine being useful if a
| human got stranded somewhere in the universe and helpful aliens
| weren't sure where to take you. Without books and electronics,
| what could you memorize that would help them search and identify
| Sol/Earth in their big astral database?
|
| This is one of them, the seemingly-pure-coincidence of solar
| eclipses where the apparent size of the moon equals the apparent
| size of the sun.
|
| Ratios in general would be handy, since they would not depend on
| difficult-to-calibrate units: The moon is ~1/6 times the mass of
| our Earth; the biggest planet Jupiter/#5 is 2.5x the mass of all
| the rest and 5.2x the distance from the sun compared to Earth/#3,
| etc.
| hosolmaz wrote:
| Wake up babe, new Bartosz Ciechanowski post dropped
| bbx wrote:
| I saw the domain name and thought the same thing. Always an
| event to see a new post of his.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Meredith, clear the rest of my day.
| askvictor wrote:
| I was just thinking about him yesterday while browsing HN,
| wondering when the next post would drop.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There was a post earlier today about mechanical watches, of
| course this site was linked again.
| funksta wrote:
| Easily one of the best sites on the internet, in my opinion
| umvi wrote:
| Yet if you ask front end devs they will say his website is
| bad and full of anti patterns and bad practices like not
| using npm, React, TypeScript, etc
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Vague appeal to authority; I'm hereby asking front end devs
| to actually have a look and confirm the above.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| it works fine on my machine, wontfix
| n42 wrote:
| this blog, its author and the work is being idolized
| everywhere in this thread as artisanal and peak of craft.
| VPenkov wrote:
| Frontend dev here. Hats off to Ciechanowski as always.
| The code is readable and works well, and looks written
| with love. I wouldn't do it this way, but then again, I
| wouldn't do this at all. Probably couldn't.
|
| This is an example of frontend as a craft. I am confident
| it was written with a model M keyboard and his home
| office is referred to as an atelier.
| andrepd wrote:
| Early Christmas present!
| praptak wrote:
| The initial simulations might give you a slightly wrong idea
| about the shape of Moon's orbit around the Sun. It doesn't form
| any loops (you can see that in the later more precise simulation)
| and is in fact convex (this one is a bit harder to see).
| hassleblad23 wrote:
| Ds
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Amazing
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Really excellent. Since I live in a high rise I've marked the
| cardinal directions on the floor and walls and been trying to
| develop a spatial intuition for the ecliptic, essentially trying
| to be able to easily imagine myself tilted in the northern
| hemisphere subtropics rotating around a sphere rotating around
| the sun. End goal would be an automatic intuition of where to
| look for the Sun, Moon, and all the visible planets. This sounds
| insane typing it out but its very passive and genuinely
| satisfying. Not being on the equator and the natural tilt of the
| Earth are the two factors that make this most difficult, of
| course.
| FredPret wrote:
| I get this. You've got me wondering how to get this project
| Wife Approved Status
| dmd wrote:
| My wife came with 9 telescopes in various states of
| disrepair.
| andrepd wrote:
| Nerds often marry other nerds ;)
| seumars wrote:
| Check out the North Paw Directional Anklet. It's basically a
| compass that vibrates whenever you face magnetic north. From
| what I've read people seem to develop a sense of direction
| pretty quickly.
| lizmutton wrote:
| Another masterpiece I am sure!
| hassleblad23 wrote:
| Amazing!
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| Bartosz has a patreon where you can sponsor these works, and on
| it he posts very detailed explainers of why and how he created
| each page.
|
| The one for Moon is at https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-
| moon-118130286
| seumars wrote:
| Thank you for sharing! Big fan of Bartosz's articles and
| somehow didn't think of looking him up on other platforms
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| You don't have to, the link is at the end of the article :)
| ustad wrote:
| Holy crap! only afew hours ago i was scraping his site and
| hoarding the delicious javascript. I wondered how long its been
| since the airfoil post and, bam! , a new article! More juicy
| javascript to hoard!
| vldmrs wrote:
| His blog posts are always amazing, very detailed and
| exceptionally visual
| hassleblad23 wrote:
| It is fascinating how much the Moon matters to us, yet it is
| largely ignored.
| hei-lima wrote:
| Wonderful! A masterpiece.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Without even clicking I now know what it is going to be. Single
| word title and lots of votes.
|
| I wonder if single word titles helps with SEO
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Moon
|
| right on front page #7 . good job
| 0wis wrote:
| Wonderful ! Even if I am not super interested in the topic, the
| explanations are so clear and the animations so nice that I have
| admiration for the work done. Full mastery of the web medium that
| makes an explanation way clearer that any paper could. Would love
| to work on a similar projet on economics & personal finance.
| Thanks for sharing !
| mopsi wrote:
| Something has gone terribly wrong when such beautiful, but
| essentially simple interactive graphics feel like an expensive
| and exotic gift, rather than something readily supported by
| widely used editors. A decade or more ago, I would've turned to
| Flash to create something like this, but now I wouldn't even know
| where to start.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I had to wait ten or fifteen minutes for a couple orbits to see
| if it would stick, but a little moon formed in the accretion
| example:
|
| https://postimg.cc/Y4LTzLBk
|
| This made me happy.
| beeforpork wrote:
| Great as usual!
|
| But I do prefer metric units.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Related: last Sunday (December 15th) was the *luna*stice - the
| northernmost endpoint of the moon's 18.6 year cycle during which
| the rise/set points move between north and south. On Sunday it
| was as far north as it gets, and for the next _generation_ it
| will move slowly south and then back again.
|
| This cycle has been known to some humans for more than 3000
| years, and appears to have helped structure architecture/layout
| at various American locations such as Chaco Canyon (New Mexico)
| 1000 years ago. It takes a minimum of 3 generations to establish
| the cycle, which indicates something about the level of social
| and scientific organization in these societies.
| erbdex wrote:
| "And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the
| Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with love like that. It
| lights up the sky."
|
| -- Rumi
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Ciechanowski is likely the best content producer of our time,
| absolutely fascinating reads. Imagine having such a person as a
| teacher - he could probably excite students about any scientific
| topic.
|
| I'd love to spend my time working on such articles when I'm
| retired :)
| markfsharp wrote:
| Wow! Just wow! Very good.
| thallavajhula wrote:
| Huge fan of Bartosz. I love their posts. I saw the post link and
| it instantly put a smile on my face 'cause I know I would love it
| even before opening the link and the post did not disappoint.
|
| In the 2nd graphic, they use of location to display the tiny
| person on the globe _chef 's kiss_. The attention to details is
| brilliant. I am 40% through with the post and I couldn't contain
| my excitement to post here. This is lovely.
| doawoo wrote:
| as a kinesthetic learner I really cannot say how invaluable the
| interactive widgets are, so wonderfully done.
| Jun8 wrote:
| I've always wondered how different human culture would be if we
| had multiple moons. Related: the relationship between lunar and
| menstrual cycles is an open question, eg see
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3716780/ or
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7840133/
| unit149 wrote:
| An order of magnitude above and below the speed of a falling
| object - exporting the JSON file that has its unadulterated
| gravitational force data. Dark matter and Newtonian mechanics are
| epiphenomenal modes of interlocking processes.
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