The Moon on GOES Visible and Longwave IR!

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By Stephen Barabas on December 4, 2012, 9:11pm Last modified: December 7, 2012, 1:52pm

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An image from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) on December 4th, 2012.

MOON IN UPPER LEFT PORTION OF PHOTO ON GOES VISIBLE SATELLITE

Every once in a 'blue moon' . . . this happens. The moon get its literal 15 minutes of fame on the GOES satellite imagery. There really isn't much to say about it other than it sure is cool! Especially if you're a nerd.

The first photo of the visible moon was brought to my attention by another meteorologist on Facebook... Courtesy of this image goes to Rob Koch and of course GOES .

I thought about it for a bit and thought it'd be cool to do some kind of thermal imagery just for kicks. Unfortunately there's only an 8 image archive and by the time I found the website (through Madison University of Wisconsin) the visible satellite of the moon was already gone. But I plugged in the Longwave IR and it popped up half black . . . a real treat showing the heated and cold sides of the moon!