Talk:Full moon

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[edit] Capitalisation

Does Full Moon always have to be capitalised? --Guinnog 23:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the spelling rules are, but most likely they differ per country. IMNSHO people shouldn't follow such micro-management by spelling committees anyway. Personally, I prefer writing names of celestial bodies with capitals. Tom Peters 09:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with that, but it should be consistent with the article title. If it is to be spelled with capitals, the article should be moved to Full Moon. A similar argument applies to New moon -> New Moon. --Guinnog 10:35, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Full Moon is currently a disambig page, New Moon is a redirect to New moon... --Guinnog 10:43, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) has "The words sun, earth, and moon are proper nouns when the sentence uses them in an astronomical context..." --Guinnog 10:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It should not be capitalized. Since moon in this sense refers to the phenomenon seen from Earth, the lowercase usage is appropriate. I do not recall ever seeing the usage "full Moon" in print. (See, for example, Merriam-Webster’s entry.) — Knowledge Seeker দ 17:57, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this true?

I got this in some random e-mail with a bunch of 'facts'.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

Not true. Since a lunar month has an average duration of about 29.5 days and February usually has only 28 days, there are occasions when there is no Full Moon in February. Last occurrence was in 1999, next one in 2018. See: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html Tom Peters 07:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

There's also the fact that there was a full moon on Feb 10, 1865 Saros136 (talk) 01:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merging material into Blue moon

The material at Full moon#The Blue Moon should probably be merged into the Full moon article. BlankVerse ∅ 16:25, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I assume that you mean that it should be merged into Blue moon. This has been done. --Theo (Talk) 14:23, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] That's amore

I deleted the statement: The moon is also the inspiration behind a song containing the lyrics: "When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie. That's amore". I think it is too general for this article. I will see if it makes a useful addition to Moon. --Theo (Talk) 14:23, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cheese

In a similar vein, I am removing the statement that cartoons usually depict the moon as being made of cheese. There might be a place for that, but it doesn't belong on a scientific page on full moons. Kafziel 19:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My mom

My mom says that it is harder to sleep when it is full moon, is this true?

[edit] Cops

Whatever the headshrinkers may theorise, ask any cop what effect the full moon has. Noone wants to be working nights around a full moon.

Exactly. You cannot do statistics on the memory of any one cop of his experiences. If instead you take a decent big sample of verifyable observations, then you will find that that there is NO relation between the phase of the Moon and almost everything else. Two reasons why people believe otherwise:
  1. a Full Moon is more conspicuous than any other phase, so people are more likely to notice the phase of the Moon;
  2. a Full Moon is visible the whole night (in contrast to partial phases), and the Moon appears full for about 3 or 4 nights on a row. So there appears to be a Full Moon in the sky for much longer than 1 night, so statistically events will be reported more often as taking place during a Full Moon than would be predicted from an astronomical calculation.
You also didn't mention that you don't need a flashlight when breaking into a house on a full moon, it's an easier time to commit a crime. I understand what you mean by many people precieving the full moon lasting alot longer than it actually is, but any one who's worked in a fraternity ward knows the difference between a night with a full moon, and without.

[edit] Added {{Confusing}} (Cats to Clean)

  1. Section is too terse, transform more like New Moon. This won't do.
  2. There is no reason to make users follow a link to get a full explaination as we have no deadtree page limits. IMHO, the math should also be explained here.
  3. The reference to a text was supposed to be in a ref block perhaps? That should not be explicit either, when has any other encyclopedia referred to a specific equation in a text book?

Best regards. Delete template at will so long as point three handled. // FrankB 20:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Duration

How long does a full moon (or any other phase of the moon, for that matter) last? 81.156.250.78 02:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is the definition wrong, or not precise enough?

At the moment, the definition (first paragraph of the the article) uses this dual condition: "when the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, and when the three celestial bodies are aligned as close as possible to a straight line".

This is inconsistent: if the Moon is truly on the opposite side, the three bodies would, in fact, be in a straight line. It is also overly vague: "as close as possible" without what? In other words, what would we have if the three bodies were truly in a straight line? The answer to this question, I believe, is the key to a more proper definition: a Full Moon occurs when the Moon is furthest from the sun in a given lunar cycle, and the three celestial bodies are at their closest to being in a straight line without being exactly in a straight line. My second condition is needed because, when the Moon is furthest from the Sun in a given lunar cycle and the bodies are exactly in a straight line, the Earth's shadow completely covers the Moon, and we have a full lunar eclipse rather than a Full Moon.

Actually, the Earth's shadow can completely cover the Moon even if the bodies are not exactly lined up. Additionally, there are intermediate situations, which are different types of partial lunar eclipses. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse , http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/lunar-2003/eclipse1.html , and http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/lunar-2003/eclipse2.html .

I'm not an astronomer, but I know a bit of solid geometry, and I know a vague phrase when I see it!

SeanStreiff 19:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually it is imprecise. The time of the closest angular approach of the Sun and Earth, as seen from the center of the Moon, is not exactly the same as the opposition. This is because at the time the Mooncentric latitudes of the Earth and Sun are changing, either getting closer or farther apart. The Full moon opposition is very close in time to the minimum distance, though. Saros136 (talk) 06:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I came here to make the same point. In fact, last week on QI, Stephen Fry stated that the state of affairs when the sun, moon, and earth are in a straight line, with the earth in the middle, is a full moon - when it would actually be a lunar eclipse. One could argue that a lunar eclipse is a special case of a full moon... David 11:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree, the way it's worded is very misleading - a straight line, or even near to it, results in a lunar eclipse, not a full moon. It's a shame that nobody bothered to fix this, because now it's on the main page with the very same mistake. 67.163.165.236 (talk) 08:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
A full moon and a lunar eclipse are not mutually exclusive events. And neither is a lunar eclipse a special case of a full moon. A full moon is the instant when the goecentric ecliptic longitudes of the Moon and Sun differ by 180 degrees. Sometimes the Moon is eclipsed at the time, sometimes not. Saros136 (talk) 05:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I just checked things out with SOLEX 9.1 At the next full moon, there is about a five minute difference between the least angular difference and the opposition (full moon). The latter agrees with the full moon time from the NASA eclipse page Saros136 (talk) 07:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked in an almanac and it seems full moon and opposition do not occur exactly at the same time (about one hour). I'm looking for more info. 22 January 2008.

Must be some mistake. They are the same thing. Saros136 (talk) 05:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] wrong definition of full moon

According to the definition in the article, full moon is when the Earth, Sun, and Moon are as close to a straight line as possible. From the Earth, this is when the angular distance between the Sun and Moon was the greatest. Using ephemeris from SOLEX 9.1, I found the max difference (near the next full moon) came at 3:27:46 TDT, and opposition at 3:31:36 TDT. (Out of curiosity, I compared the opposition time to the algorithm from Astronomical Algorithms, by Meeus. Meeus' time for the full moon was two seconds later.) A 3:50 difference. (The answer was slightly different when I used the smallest Sun-Earth difference from the Moon). Gotta correct the definition. Meeus gives the apparent geocentric longitude definition. Saros136 (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

When the earth, sun, and moon are aligned, how does the earth NOT block the light getting to the moon? How is there EVER a full moon? Surely for the moon to be in the night sky, it's in our shadow automatically. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 03:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I mentioned a possible difference between the times of full moon and opposition. It was an error on the website I consulted, which used a redundant, less accurate algorithm for opposition. I'm sorry for reacting too fast. Although astronomy can get complicated, I think there is no ambiguity that they are strictly the same, as per Meeus' definition. Jblndl (talk) 19:43, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] eclipse

Perhaps add something to address this question. Because of the inclination of the moon's orbital plane on the ecliptic plane (5°), the moon is usually not in the Earth's shadow at that time (angular size 1°23'). When the moon's orbit is close enough to the ecliptic at the time of opposition, and the moon enters partially or totally the Earth's shadow, the event is a Lunar eclipse. Jblndl (talk) 14:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)