Often strange things happen during a Full Moon

Although refuted by many "experts," there are strange occurrences during a full moon.  Tonight is a Full Moon. Right here I don't see any activities out of the ordinary but maybe that is because it is cloudy; maybe because there is no correlation; or maybe because it is early. 

Even though it seems all quiet, this event does illustrate how a dark sky assists in observing the sky at night. There are a number of iOS apps that assist in observation.  Tonight I thought I would try an iPad app "Moon Seeker." It features a fairly unique 3D aspect to it that lets you view the moon through the device's camera and overlay that live image over a depiction of data representing the sky in a specific location. Maybe a couple of photos will help this explanation. This first photo is a screen shot of the app showing me where to look based on time of night.  Actually, that should be sort of self evident; the Moon is pretty big. But it does show interesting information about the perceived movement of the Moon over time.

The second image uses the 3D view capability.  Fortunately, the clouds were gone by now, although a little haze obscured the stars, but certainly not the Moon. What all of this means I am not quite sure. That is a reason that viewing is best done with an astronomer. A Full Moon viewing party is one of the things you could do at The Goldminer. 

Having this type of expert is nice but certainly not necessary. The viewing activity illustrates the power of a dark and often clear  night sky. The Goldminer Hotel is the perfect place to try such observations. I hope you do.