MnAstro Forums

Both groups that I've volunteered to do outreach for have requested a presentation on the Moon. I've thus begun working on a multimedia presentation about our Moon and would love some feedback on it (specifically on the animations for it, and best practices in Astro outreach, since this is my first time with MAS).

I read that only 1/4 of high school students correctly answered how lunar phases work (on 4-answer multiple choice), so I decided to focus on the basics first.

Here's the first draft of a stylized/cartoony explanation of the phases of the moon.

Whoops! The moon was orbiting backwards in the first posting, this is now fixed


After this, I might show the actual libration of the moon (borrowing NASA's) to quickly point out that the orbit is elliptical and inclined, so the model shown is simplified, and also why eclipses don't happen every month (and then go on to talk about how they do happen).

Here's some work on the realistic model that uses high-resolution maps from the LRO



Let me know your thoughts/suggestions!

Stefan Payne-Wardenaar

I am planning on reviewing this but probably won't get to it until Tuesday night. I'd like to have a great presentation on the Moon we can use at our public events this year since we are marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. I'll be in touch.

Re: thoughts/suggestions

Great visuals, but in that first video, you have the Moon revolving around the Earth in the wrong direction, and thus the phases are backward. Also, the phases you show are "waning": at the second half of the cycle (going from full to new.)

The last video (Moon 360 Glow) also has the phases going backwards.

Ron Schmit wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:53 am Re: thoughts/suggestions

Great visuals, but in that first video, you have the Moon revolving around the Earth in the wrong direction, and thus the phases are backward. Also, the phases you show are "waning": at the second half of the cycle (going from full to new.)

The last video also has the phases going backwards.

You're right! Thank you for catching that, the earth rotating the other way should have been a clue, I'll fix that now.

defalkner wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:44 am I am planning on reviewing this but probably won't get to it until Tuesday night. I'd like to have a great presentation on the Moon we can use at our public events this year since we are marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. I'll be in touch.

Sounds great Dave, I'd love to help with that. I'll start researching Apollo 11 to familiarize myself with the mission.

Awesome! Thanks for putting this together!

Hi Stefan,

These visuals and animations are great.

Thanks.

Progress on a revolving view of the moon, with and without labels and with colored topography. Rendered out in separate layers such that pieces can be transitioned between, reused and tweaked after the renders.
Feedback is welcomed.

I think these are great visuals. Maybe a little audio to the video's?

Well done!!

Just a couple suggestions:
* Mare Crisium is labeled Mare Fecunditatis.
* Missing are Mare Vaporum, and Mare Cognitum, but maybe that's just a style choice.
* LOVE the topographic data, but shouldn't Mt Huygens be orange (@ 5.5 km)?

Ron Schmit wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:46 pm Well done!!

Just a couple suggestions:
* Mare Crisium is labeled Mare Fecunditatis.
* Missing are Mare Vaporum, and Mare Cognitum, but maybe that's just a style choice.
* LOVE the topographic data, but shouldn't Mt Huygens be orange (@ 5.5 km)?

*Thanks for catching the mis/duplicate labeling!
*There are still a few places I can add for labeling, I'll include those two though.
*Huygens is 5.5 from the base to peak: Base is about -2 km below mean radius (teal), the top is about 3.5 km above mean (yellow)

Here's my first draft of the presentation on the Moon, including a video montage of Apollo 11, that I used at school presentations.

It was heavily edited down to try and bring it under 15 minutes, and to make it elementary/middle school appropriate, thus explanations and information is a bit sparse, though complex topics are mentioned (Planet accretion and Impact Hypothesis, though discussion of tides pushing the moon away or the theories on nearside/farside asymmetry are excluded for now)

Mimicking documentary shorts, many slides have no text at all and rely on visuals to be narrated/explained over.

Let me know your suggestions!

Script/Outline:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IaW ... sp=sharing

Presentation: Disclaimer: I made this using WPS office, It may or may not work well with Powerpoint. Videos may need to be re-linked
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JoLGE ... RAqijCXshJ

(Proper video credits forthcoming)

Stefan, I just wanted you to know that I moved this to the Announcement section so that it wouldn't get lost in all of the outreach requests.