TLP , does it happen?

[col]

Iv read about TLP(transient lunar phenomena) a little, and it sounds very interesting in that there could be a number of reasons.?

Has anyone witnessed it, or know someone who has?

Ill be keeping my eyes peeled , you never know.

 

[Zeta Reticulan]

I possibly witnessed it once. It was on the 5th of August 2017. I was observing in the Grimaldi region. The Moon was almost full. I witnessed a bright flash of light near the centre of Grimaldi. After I thought it was difficult to focus on the region for a while, almost as if some sort of ejecta was present. I could focus on other areas of the Moon. After a while I could focus on Grimaldi again. It may have been a meteor strike. IDK.

[JeremyS]

Have a look at the BAA Lunar Section page that refers to this (and provides links to further pages) 

https://britastro.org/section_information_/lunar-section-overview/lunar-section-observation-activities/lunar-geological-change-detection

[col]

cheers , ill have a look at that later.

Its  interesting to think that any time we could see something if we happen to be looking at the Moon and even a micro meteorite hits.

[Peter Drew]

I'm inclined to believe that they happen as I have seen two.  The first was an obvious blue haze inside the crater Aristarchus using reflecting optics and no similar effect elsewhere on the Moon at the time.  The second was a steady pinpoint of light on the unilluminated part of the surface.  By the time I had rushed in to get a higher magnification eyepiece the light had vanished.    🙂

[Mr Spock]

Same here. I used to be a regular contributor to the BAA Lunar Section TLP section. I did once report the N rim of Aristarchus seemed bluish. It's one of the targets for TLP observations.

The other thing I used to do is observe the shadow side for flashes. I've seen a few. They are meteorite impacts and the brightness of the flash tells you how large they are.

Though I'm out of touch with the Lunar Section, I'd still send a report in if I saw something. I get the section circulars each month. Maybe I should check in to let them know I'm still alive lol.

[Ian McCallum]

The late Sir Patrick Moore certainly believed in it,  having observed it on several occasions. I'm going from memory here, but he did mention it on the Sky At Night programme.  He also mentioned it in at least one of his books. 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Ian McCallum

[Paz]

Knowing how difficult it can bee to see certain sights and how the brain seems to suddenly get better at clocking things after the first time it recognises something I wonder how many people have seen these events and not realised.

[Barry Fitz-Gerald]

I think there was a bit of an attempt to kill off TLP's as a phenomenon a few years ago, but I suspect that was quite unwarranted. The Moon seems to be pretty inert geologically, but stuff still goes on such as impacts which as mentioned above have been observed and imaged numerous times, as well as moonquakes which are probably caused by tidal stresses especially at around the times of apogee and perigee. These could cause avalanche type activity on some steeper slopes which together with electrostatic forces operating on the fine regolith component exposed, might produce dust cloud type phenomenon that could account for some of the brightening and obscurations seen. Of course the unpredictability of these things makes them difficult to study and might lead many to dismiss them as being down to spurious effects lighting/atmospheric/instrument effects. However many quite experienced observers have reported them, and some of the sites of previous reports do have unusually fresh looking deposits on their slopes (though fresh in lunar terms can be very ancient in terrestrial terms) so I think it would be unwise to dismiss them just yet. I monitor a few of the sites of what I consider to be the more convincing reports made by experienced observers - obviously not seen anything yet but I live in hope, and by concentrating on them repeatedly I hope to become familiar with their changing appearance so that anything out of the ordinary should be apparent.