Apr 22nd, 2024

Author: donich_admin

Moon Power

My bed is currently positioned right in front of the french windows in my office. I really like this (to the extent that I am considering switching my office and bedroom over permanently), as with the curtains open I can see right out over the mountains. I often wake up quite early and can actually watch dawn coming in (plus deer venturing into the garden before they think humans can see them).

About 2.30am this morning I woke up, and the room was so bright I thought R had come in and turned the lights on. In fact the sky was clear and a fantastic full moon (well actually a waxing gibbous 98% – full moon is tomorrow) was hanging just over Bheula. Unfortunately photos like this don’t take well on my phone so I didn’t try. It looked pretty amazing though.

I once investigated to see if solar panels can generate power from moonlight and they can (as scientifically you would expect) but only at the rate of about 1% of sunlight. Our software for reviewing our solar production is not really set up for this – but I can see that during moonrise, we were actually making a whole 100W of electricity. So actually we could have charged two tablets and two phones (8w each), and 6 10W LED bulbs. A laptop costs about 60w while it is running – depending of course on what it is you are using it for.

So moon power doesn’t really rock, but it might be said to provide a gentle roll or two!