paint the moon

On October 27th at 11:00 P.M. EDT (10:00 P.M. CDT, 9:00 P.M. MDT, 8:00 P.M. PDT) and again on November 24th at 11:00 P.M. EST (10:00 P.M. CST, 9:00 P.M. MST, 8:00 P.M. PST), everyone who has a laser pointer and a clear view of the first-quarter Moon should turn on their pointers and aim them at the moon, just behind (to the left, or East) of the terminator (the line where the sunlight stops). The illustration at the bottom of this node shows approximately where you should aim. Continue to shine your pointer at this spot for five minutes. That's it.

These dates and times were selected for a couple of reasons: the Moon will be just beyond the first quarter, giving us a dark portion to attempt to illuminate; it will be visible for a long enough period of time that everyone on the continent can participate, and to thereby maximize our chance of being able to see any success at painting a spot of light on it; it's a weekend, so people (particularly schoolchildren) can stay up a little late on the East Coast to attempt this.

Why two attempts? Because it's almost certain that some parts of the continent will have cloud cover, and so not be able to participate. By attempting this twice, maybe everyone will get to see it work at least once. If large sections of the continent have weather problems, we'll see about scheduling another attempt in the spring.

[Editor's note, 8/31/2002: Spazm nuke-requested this writeup saying it was out of date. This editor replied suggesting it be rewritten, perhaps adding what actually happened. No reply yet.]