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skywise
Jan21-04, 07:58 PM
Greetings physics wizzes!

I am trying to find out what time the new moon reaches it's apex tonight. This is probably the most elementary task but I'm fairly clueless when it comes to this stuff. [8)]
Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks.

chroot
Jan21-04, 07:59 PM
What's an "apex?"

- Warren

skywise
Jan21-04, 08:14 PM
I'm under the impression that this is the highest point of the moon's transit across the night sky.

Jimmy
Jan21-04, 08:37 PM
If it's a new moon then it will be close to the sun and will transit the meridian around noon (local time). Of course, the exact time of the new moon doesn't coincide with everyone's local noon time.

Here's a link to a site which let's you enter the date and your location and will return local sunset/sunrise/transit and moonset/rise/transit.

Transit in this case refers to when the object in question transits the meridian.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/aa_pap.pl

Jimmy
Jan21-04, 08:48 PM
I should add that when an object transits the meridian (the line drawn across the sky from north to south), it is at its highest altitude in its path across the sky.

skywise
Jan21-04, 08:50 PM
Thanks Jimmy,
Okay, so that makes sense.. that being the new moon it would be very near the sun so when the sun is at it's highest it would serve to figure that ....sheesh. That should have occured to me. [g)]
Thanks for the link.. very handy.

Jimmy
Jan21-04, 08:53 PM
You're welcome. [:)]