“The real mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible” – an extract from one of Oscar Wilde’s works (The Picture of Dorian Gray). It has been one of my favorites since I was a kid.
As we grow up, we tend to get busy, often our priorities tend to shift towards work and other responsibilities. People slowly tend to forget (or just don’t think the have the time) to stop for a moment and enjoy the little things. When we are kids, these are the things that we truly find amazing – the ones which we would truly enjoy. The moon and water were, nyaa are, two of my favorite things. I still remember going up to the terrace on a full moon and just be amazed about the amount of light I could see that late at night. Looking at the stars, and talking to friends was one of my favorite pastimes when I entered college. And water, well, every one of my friends know how crazy I am about it, just the sound of water flowing is music to my ears.
The other day, I was driving back from office with a friend of mine. It was a full moon just a few days back and the moon was looking really beautiful then. The night had just begun and the moon had a brownish hue. This made me wonder, how many others do observe these things? And as usual, my mind was like “challenge accepted” :). I went ahead and pinged all my friends that I have a feeling that moon had a brownish hue today and wondered if it was just me. I decided not to check the responses and guess how people would react to the message before I went ahead. I believe the true way to understand people is asking stuff like this 🙂 – not everything about them, but some part of their personality.
Once home, I got my mom and dad to check it out… “padandi padandi… okati chupinchaali meeku, chandrunni chudandi eerooju koncham brown color lo undi” (hurry hurry, need to show you the moon in the brownish hue today). I knew what both of them would say, so I asked my dad and he was “araee, nijamae kada bete, brown color lo undi” (wow, that’s true, it’s brown) – my mom quickly interjected “ninna pournami kaabatti eerooju ala kanipistundi, inkoncham sepaithe white aipotundi“, (it is because it was full moon yesterday, it looks like this but after a while it will be white) and well that was the right answer. I wondered how many of them ever noticed this.
When I checked the responses from my friends. My guesses were mostly on the mark :)… it ranged from people who were already observing it and felt it was indeed darker than usual to the people who were too busy to even get out and check this phenomenon. Some of them at least had the curiosity to check it right away – I think it is the minimum amount of curiosity one should retain – when we were kids, perhaps we would have found it ‘magical?!’ :). Some ‘geeks’ quickly went ahead and google-ed for any celestial activity that day – lol, well… I thought “that is fine too, well… is it?”. For those guys – try not to use google next time (I call no-cheatsies).
So, for everyone curious why this happens, it is quite simple really. I hope you know the colors of the rainbow – VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red) – different wavelengths in the spectrum of white light. The color (the ultimate illusion) you see is basically the combination of colors which were able to make it to your eye from the moon – and of course, be processed by your brain. Each wavelength has different refractive index, and when they pass through the earth’s atmosphere, the wavelengths which bounce off, won’t be seen. Early in the night, when you look at the moon, the light from it travels a good distance more than when does at mid night.
It’s quite similar to the sun really. The reason for those beautiful colors during a sun rise. (and the reason for that extreme heat during mid-day.). So, this orangish hue feels like brownish (to my eyes, in an ‘urban’ environment) based on the skies.
There are a lot of interesting things in the sky and stargazing is one of the most relaxing activities. If you haven’t tried it yet, get out of the city and check it out for yourself. That reminds me, I still have to write about my experimentation with the telescope – I’ll do that once I get an extension for my camera to the telescope.