/ 2016 / Nature / Sky

Adventures in Celestial Mechanics

My Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project is based on my quest
to capture each full moon of the year, at moonrise or moonset,
from somewhere in the Maine landscape. The project name derives
from my delightfully-named college textbook that captured the
beauty and majesty of the equations underlying orbital mechanics.
For moonrise of the full moon results from an important phase of
the celestial dance between the Earth, Sun, and Moon ā€“ when all
three bodies are aligned and one can stand on the Earth with the
sunset at your back and moon rising right in front of you.

The fascinating names of each full moon, each rooted in the
history of the land and its peoples, provide further inspiration for
my endeavors.

Moonrise and the cycles of the moon happen endlessly, month
after month, year after year, and their