Tuesday April 17, 2007 Shalom Brethren, This is an update to the notification for the the second new moon sent out last evening. It is highly likely that the new moon will be visible on April 18 first but there is a rare opportunity that it might be seen tonight April 17 in the northwestern US and western Canada. Please submit your reports online. New Moon Report A brother from New Mexico notified me of this possibility and his comments follow. Please take the opportunity to check tonight's sky; I appreciate any reports concerning the visibility. 
MoonCalc 6.0 - April 17, 2007 
MoonCalc 6.0 - April 18, 2007 Yahweh bless,
James A. Meyer Letter from a New Mexico BrotherI've been checking this one out. It will be quite "young" on the 1st night (Tuesday the 17th), by most accounts it should not be visible. (For sure not there on the east coast!) For us here in New Mexico, the conjunction will be at 05:36 MDT on Tuesday morning, the 17th. At New Mexico sunset on Tuesday (19:41 MDT) it will be 14 hours and 5 min old. An elder has said that a new moon younger than 18 hours probably cannot be seen. I've seen an astro write-up that said the youngest moon ever spotted was a bit over 12 hours old--probably with a telescope. However, at this time of the year, with the moon almost directly above the sun at sunset, we'll get a fairly wide elongation (angle from the sun) of 7.25 degrees. I have also heard that the closest (to the sun) a new moon has been spotted was around 8 degrees. The sun will be 13 degrees north of west at setting. The moon should be a few degrees north of that. Wednesday night should be easy, however--add the daily slip of the moon behind the sun (12.5 degrees) to the 1st day's elongation. I'm going to try Tuesday night, however--maybe we can make history! I've attached a picture of what my astro program (Starry Night Pro) says Tuesday night should look like. Happy spotting! 
Starry Night Pro - April 17, 2007 | 
