MAY 1, 2006 - Major Lunar Standstill could stand a little editing here and there, but it's a wonderfully and directly enlightening presentation of lunar declination regardless. It's an online version of Dr. Judith Young's January 2005 presentation to the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego, describing the 2006 peak in the 18.6-year lunar declination cycle. Dr. Young takes the seemingly abstract complexities of celestial mechanics and translates them into experiential markers we can all see and remember in the sky around us, along the lines of what our ancestors did centuries ago in monuments like Arizona's Casa Grande, New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, and England's Stonehenge. (Dr. Young has built her own such stone circle on the University of Massachussets Amherst campus.) In words and pictures, Major Lunar Standstill clearly explains what we see in the sky this year (and next), as the Moon hits its extreme distances north and south of the celestial equator.
