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Frank Reed and Matus Tejiscak have been engaging in an interesting conversation regarding an image taken on the Moon's surface by the "Blue Ghost" lander from Firefly Aerospace (see messages with subject: "Navigating on the Moon"). Today I received an e-mail message from Sky & Telescope - an amateur astrononomy magazine and website - which included an image taken by Blue Ghost's wide lens camera, mounted on its top deck. Although I don't know if it has any relevance for celestial navigation or space navigation, it's very beautiful.  It's one of a total solar eclipse, in its "diamond ring" stage. showing the Earth "covering" the Sun's disk.  This occurred on the night of March 13 to March 14, during which a total lunar eclipse could be seen by Earth observers who, unlike me in central New Jersey, enjoyed a clear sky. 

The image is very similar to that of a total solar eclipse seen form Earth, despite the fact that there is a significant difference in the apparent sizes of the celestial bodies involved. From Earth, the angular sizes of Sun and Moon are very close, about 0.5°. But from the Moon, while the angular size of the Sun is also about 0.5°, the angular size of the Earth is much larger, about 2°.  So it's remarkable that, at a given stage, total solar eclipses seen from the Moon look very similar to the more familiar total solar eclipses seen from our planet.

Best, Rafael C.

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