posted 10-29-2004 06:25 AM
On Thursday, 28 October 2004 the Post Office released a set of stamps depicting the Lunar Eclipse. Ascension Island's landscape, not unlike that of the Moon itself is captured on the stamps which are beautifully designed by Mr Derek Miller and printed by BDT International Security Printers. Each stamp shows a phase of the Moon above the following locations:15p Hummock Point
25p Sister's Peak (North side)
35p Daly's Crags
£1.25 Mars Bay
£1.25 repeated in a souvenir sheet illustrative panel of a Sooty Tern with explanatory text.
The moon, sun, planets and other orbiting heavenly bodies always rise in the East and set in the West but the Moon appears to travel in different directions dependent upon which hemisphere you are viewing it from. After it has risen the Moon appears to travel from right to left below the equator. The stamps are affixed to the cover in reverse order than is the convention in an artistic interpretation of this effect.
Further, the placement of the moons on each individual stamp varies slightly to reflect the actual shift in the Moon's position as it travels from rising in the East to setting in the West.
The colours used for individual values interpret the way the Moon's colour changes from 'normal' through to red as it goes in full lunar eclipse.
Mint sets of stamps at £2.00 and souvenir sheets at £1.25 each and first day covers with souvenir sheet affixed at £1.75 and stamps affixed at £2.50 each are now available to purchase for a period of fifteen months provided stocks last.
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Jürgen P Esders
Berlin, Germany
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astroaddies
posted 10-29-2004 06:25 AM
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