I was thinking of taking a 2" diameter rubber air filled ball and hang it on a rope with a servo motor to slowly move it across the sky to block the moon from one small area on the ground without blocking much view of the sky.
Two tubes might be easier, but I'd still need a tracking mechanism.
But what if I simply propped up a 4x8 sheet of plywood so that it was straight up like a fence, perpendicular to the moon so that it created a shadow of the moon for several hours, but permitted the ground on both sides equal amount of view of clear night sky? (In other words, the ground immediately on each side of the sky would see half the night sky, but one side would get the moon and the other not!)
That would be interesting but quite a few, including myself, have shown that the cooling effect is simply the cold (very cold at night) of the clear sky and that the moon has nothing to do with it:
So I’m still left concluding that sunlight is hot and moonlight is cold. I can dig it. Why do some folks have such a hang up with that conclusion? Just respectfully asking.
I took two containers filled with water and placed one in a location shaded from the sky (under a verandah roof or under a shrub, it moade little difference).
The sky temperature was measured with an IR thermometer directed as near as possible vertical but well away from any overhead objects and the sun (in daylight).
Here are a few of my results - with no moon in the sky.Date and Time | | Sky Temp | | Shade Temp | | Exposed Temp |
Aug 10 06:40 | | | | 7.1°C | | 3.2°C |
09:00 | | -21°C | | 11.1°C | | 7.3°C |
16:00 | | -20°C | | 17.8°C | | 16.5°C |
19:45 | | -24°C | | 12.0°C | | 10.3°C |
Aug 11 07:00 | | -21°C | | 8.4°C | | 5.7°C |
Bright Sun: 11:35 | | -16°C | | 20.2°C | | 34.2°C |
After dawn, still in shade: Aug 12 06:40 | | -18°C | | 10.2°C | | 6.82°C |
After dawn, still in shade: Aug 13 07:00 | | -40°C | | 1.5°C | | -3.0°C |
The temperature of that one in the bright sun kept rising.
There is no need for any moon in the sky. The moon does not send out "rays".
Moonlight travels in all directions and has an extremely small heating effect - maybe (50/500,000)°C and virtually impossible to measure.
The temperature of an object is due to an equilibrium between heat lost to the environment and heat gained.
The sky, day or night, is very cold and very little heat is gained from that source but shading objects are usually at about the air temperature and far warmer than the sky.
And just now, March 12, 2019 at 10:45 AM, on what is expected to be a very hot day, using a good IR thermometer, I measured the temperature of:
- the sky directly overhead, but without the sun in view, as 5.0°C and
- the shade under some trees as 36.3°C.
As a check on that shade temperature, an independent thermometer showed the in shade air temperature as 36.3°C.
Moonlight is not cold but the sky, especially on a clear night is what is cold.
Even
Jeran Campanella, "jeranism" did an experiment and came to the interim conclusion that moonlight is not cold:
Moon Light Test Results - Full Moon & New Moon Compared by jeranismYou'll have to wade through a lot of
"jeranism" to get to the nitty-gritty.
But at 13:40 he states, "My Conclusion Would Be THE MOONLIGHT IS NOT COLD".
I don't quite agree with what follows. It is not really "the direct cold air" that cools things but radiative loss to "space".
Just try a search for "moonlight colder than shade" in YouTube and you'll get flooded with "answers".
This is an interesting one that shows that moonlight is "warm":
YouTube: Does Moonlight Makes Things Colder? by Astronomy Live.