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That one abandoned astronomy site from 2005 still has better moon guides than NASA's page
I was looking up lunar phase info the other night for a camping trip near Big Bend, and kept landing on this old site called MoonConnection that hasn't been touched since 2006. The fonts are tiny and there's a guestbook full of dead links, but the manual on identifying crater shadows during first quarter is way more detailed than anything I've found on modern astronomy blogs. It made me realize how much good content just gets buried when people move on to newer platforms. There's no ads, no pop-ups, just pure info from someone who clearly spent hundreds of hours building it. I ended up bookmarking three other pages from that era for future stargazing. Anyone else got a dusty old site they still rely on for something specific?
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gracecarr26d ago
The thing about the tiny font and dead guestbook is actually part of the charm for me. It's like finding a handwritten letter in an attic. But here's something nobody's touching on - this old site might actually be better at teaching you how to think about moon phases instead of just giving you the answer. Modern apps spoonfeed you the phase and call it a day. That old MoonConnection page probably made you do the work of matching shadows to your own eyes, which sticks way longer. I fell down a similar rabbit hole with a 2004 Mars observing guide that had this whole section on sketching dust storms by hand. Crazy how getting no polish forced me to actually learn stuff.
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richardrodriguez26d ago
That bit about "no ads, no pop-ups" is actually pretty close to the truth but not quite. I remember MoonConnection from back then. It had a small banner ad at the bottom for some telescope retailer, but it was so low-key you'd miss it if you weren't looking. Those old sites were a different world. The guy who ran it used to update his observing log every clear night for years until he just stopped in '06. I still use it for identifying specific rilles and domes on the moon, stuff a lot of newer apps gloss over.
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