Talk:Full moon

message: However, Dr Timo Partonen of the Finnish National Public Health Institute carried out a study of 1400 suicides and found that people were more likely to make an attempt on their life when there was a new moon.
Unless people disagree, I'm going to remove this text as it refers to a new mooìn rather than a full moon.
lxowle (talk) 03:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont objectTwonumbers (talk) 13:00, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Folklore

message: Its absolute maximum size occurs at the moment expansion has stopped, and when graphed, its tangent slope is zero.
I suggest removing this line all together - it is a complex way of saying something simple.
lxowle (talk) 03:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested Edit

message: 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)
replies: text: There's also the fact that there was a full moon on Feb 10, 1865 Saros136 (talk) 01:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this true? 

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

message: 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)
thread_title: That's amore

message: 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)
thread_title: Cheese

message: My mom says that it is harder to sleep when it is full moon, is this true?
:Maybe for you, because the gravity is affected on a full moon. 23:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have trouble sleeping during a full moon until i adjust the curtains. Otherwise I get the moon shining right in my eyes. Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:19, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Harder!

message: # Section is too terse, transform more like New Moon. This won't do. 
# 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.
# 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. // <B>Fra</B>nkB 20:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added {{Tlx|Confusing}} (Cats to Clean) 

message: 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)
replies: text: 1.0 moments. Before this moment it is called waxing gibbous, and after is called waning gibbous. See Lunar phase. Mikeeg555 (talk) 03:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duration 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: Must be some mistake. They are the same thing. Saros136 (talk) 05:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the definition wrong, or not precise enough? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title: wrong definition of full moon

message: 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)
thread_title: eclipse

message: The illuminated area of the moon, as seen from the earth, rises and falls through the moon's various phases, as we know.  Its apparent brightness, based on the light from the sun to the moon, reflected or scattered back to the earth, also rises and falls accordingly.  As the moon nears Full moon, it's apparent illuminated area increases slowly to a maximum and then decreases slowly away from that, similar to the peak of a sine wave.  A second effect is that humans are not especially sensitive to changes in brightness; our perception to brightness changes is often spoken as being logarithmic.  So we should expect our perception to be that the moon would appear to be close to it's brightest for several days leading up to the Full moon and for several days thereafter.  However, instead it appears to be MUCH brighter right at the Full moon, and perhaps for one day before and after.  
I'm wondering if the reflectivity of the moon to the earth isn't much higher right when the light angle from the sun to the earth is very close to 180 degrees, and we're not relying so much on light-scattering and off-angle (non-180-degree) reflectance to get our moonlight.  Perhaps the Full moon really is MUCH brighter?  Perhaps someone knows where to look up measurements of this effect, assuming that it's real.  98.216.52.158 (talk) 09:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  the moon's apparent brightness 

message: Am I right in thinking that it only appears round, but is in fact, not a circle, but an ellipse? --Rebroad (talk) 22:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's approximately round. The craters, mountains, valleys, etc., modify this. Additionally, when the moon is close to the horizon, refraction from the atmosphere makes it appear flattened -- wider than tall. Victor Engel (talk) 14:41, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "appears round" (but is not actually?) 

message: I am no astronomer but it seems to me that the one time you cannot have a full moon (see opening para of the article) is when the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun.  Surely this is when there will be maximum earth shadow across the moon as the earth will be directly between the sun and the moon??  Am I being thick here?
Further . . . if the stated positioning was in a completely straight line, then it seems to me that there would be a total eclipse of the moon, which is about as far as you can get from a full moon.  I'm sure I must be missing soemthing here but I would be very grateful if someone can tell me what.   Gurumaister (talk) 19:30, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the shaded area of the moon is normally the moon's own shadow from the sun, not the Earth's shadow. Thus on Earth we see the moon get the most sun when the sun and moon are opposite, giving us a full moon. On the occasions where the Earths shadow does touch the moon, we get a lunar eclipse. Ikmxx (talk) 05:47, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Query on moon's position

message: I propose that the main image becomes:
It's a simplified version of the full moon (so no picture) to bring article in line with other moon phase articles
…
KVDP (talk) 12:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point Twonumbers (talk) 10:12, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Main image

message: The moon names section contains the following: "the Egg Moon (the full moon before Easter) would be the first moon after March 21".
But according to the Easter section of Claus Tøndering's Calendar FAQ, Easter is "the first Sunday after the first Full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox [emphasis mine] (the FAQ then explains that the "official" Vernal Equinox, on 21 March, is usually used for this calculation, rather than the actual Vernal Equinox, which may differ from the official one by a day or two).  So which is correct?
The FAQ also says that this full moon, because it's associated with Easter, is called the Paschal Moon.  Perhaps this name should be added to the "alternate names" section? — 188.28.84.150 (talk) 08:01, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name and date of spring moon? 

message: Protection due to ongoing sock disruption? Anyone mind translating this into English, please? Victor Engel (talk) 20:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sock disruption? 

message: Some myths are based on the full moon, like the werewolf.  Also, on H2o (a popular mermaid show) there is a part about the full moon. It's always the full moon, why are some myths based on only the full moon? Why not a half moon or anything else? Any answer would help! 
~ Angielmawesomeness  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angielmawesomeness (talk • contribs) 04:10, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Myths 

message: --Robert Saunders (talk) 21:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pink Moon in April? 

message: The first two sentences of the article both appear to be missing the word "is".  In the first sentence, "when the Moon completely illuminated" should be "when the Moon is completely illuminated".  In the second sentence, "the Moon in opposition" should be "the Moon is in opposition".Wcomm (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor grammar changes 

message: The "Harvest and Hunter's moons" section currently says:
:"Harvest Moon" and "Hunter's Moon" are traditional terms for the full moons occurring in autumn, usually in September and October, respectively.
However, autumn is only around that time of year in the Northern hemisphere.  So, are these the full moons around the September equinox, in which case the hemisphere doesn't matter, or are these the full moons around the autumnal equinox, which makes them in September or October in the Northern hemisphere and in March or April in the Southern hemisphere?  To put it a different way, counting both hemispheres, are there one or two hunter's moons per year?  The way the above line is currently worded is pretty much self-contradictory on this point.  -- HiEv 13:00, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harvest and Hunter's moons and hemisphere 

message: Substituted at 15:42, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Harvest moon (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 13:33, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress 

message: urila  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Urila (talk • contribs) 02:08, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Backscattering yields a uniform full moon image. 

message: So the article said it was 180° apart. It's not exactly true on every full moon, except for lunar eclipse, though it's still called full moon. I corrected it a bit and some users reverted me. The only reason why it's not exactly 180° apart on every full moon is that moon orbit is 5° tilted from earth orbit. The Channel of Random (talk) 16:00, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You can find the official definition here (see p. 478). AstroLynx (talk) 16:09, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

text: You are referring to the angular difference between the Sun and the Moon as measured along a great circle on the celestial sphere which at astronomical full moon is indeed usually slightly less than 180°. But for the computation of the moment of the astronomical full moon this is irrelevant as only the projected longitudes of the Sun and the Moon on the ecliptic are considered. This is how astronomers have computed these times for more than two millennia and it is by far the most straightforward way to do this. The lede already clearly mentions that ecliptical longitudes are involved and changing 'exactly' to 'approximately' is simply wrong. Further on, perhaps in the 'Formula' section, it may be useful to elaborate on this distinction and on the paradox that an exactly fully illuminated moon is actually never seen as it is then in the Earth's shadow cone. AstroLynx (talk) 07:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  180° apart? 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:52, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: The Full Moon is what we see when the Earth facing side of the Moon is at its maximum visibility as seen from Earth during a given orbit.
I say that because it’s orbital inclination is approximately 5.145° which means in almost every case, we never see a 100% visible moon during a full moon.
That can only occur during a total lunar eclipse and being at the right location at the right time.
For that to happen, one must be at the right location at the right time and the Moon must be within the right latitudes around the ecliptic.
While the average person might not visually tell the difference between a moon that’s 96%+ or 100% full with unaided eyes over the span of several days/nights (save for lunar eclipses which appear dark due to Earth’s shadow and red due to atmospheric light refraction), it’s obvious for those with sharp vision and/or optical equipment.
Yet the photos obviously show the Moon’s Earth-facing side not being completely sunlit as either the east, west, north or south of the Moon is hidden in darkness as those portions aren’t reflecting any sunlight.
All in all, the term full moon appears to be a misnomer in most cases as it’s only truly possible if viewed at the right location on Earth at the right time during the right lunar eclipse.
The article needed a big fix as it stated something we almost never see.
It would be more common to see a 100% full moon from a given location on Earth if it’s orbital inclination were 0° relative to the ecliptic.
Yet as written far below the page, it’s a moment that never lasts. 67.235.204.246 (talk) 10:14, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addressing the definition of a full moon 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Harvest moon and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 15#Harvest moon until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Harvest moon" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: It says there’s still some dark spot when there isn’t a lunar eclipse.
Well first of all, a spot is a point, and second of all, how much of it that appears dark during a full moon depends not only on where the Moon is in its orbit, but where you’re viewing it.
The only way you can’t see a dark section during a lunar eclipse is if the Moon is at the very center of the anti-solar point (the opposite of the Sun’s position), which rarely ever happens and you have to be at the right place on Earth at the right time.
Even during an ultra-central lunar eclipse, very few places will ever see the moon apparently making a bull’s eye with the anti-solar point even though it hits the center of Earth’s shadow no matter where you are during so.
You gotta think about parallax and how the Moon is much closer to Earth than even the nearest stars (including the Sun), so where it is relative to background points in the sky varies depending on where you view the Moon from.
Yet diurnal libration (caused by Earth’s rotation) also adds to the fact that only limited places get such spot on views of the Moon during ultra-central lunar eclipses (where the portion unilluminated by sunlight of any means) is too small for even high quality digital cameras to detect.
Truth to be told, the “spot” that isn’t illuminated by the sun never disappears from view unless you’re at the right place at the right time during a lunar eclipse. Eric Nelson27 (talk) 13:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dark spot during no lunar eclipse 

message: — Assignment last updated by WZ2372 (talk) 14:19, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - FA22 - Sect 201 - Thu

message: I've added material (with references) for full moon names attributed to indigenous North Americans. There's quite a lot of information, and given the limited geographical scope (and the dubious nature of some of the sources), I wonder if there should instead be a separate new article for these folk names. The material I've added is in the section headed "Farmers Almanacs", which again seems out of place, since the Maine Farmers Almanac claimed its 1937 list was of traditional English names (though they were neither traditional nor English). I also think that the big table of moon names in that section should be removed, since all it shows is that various authors have suggested lots of names that are not well substantiated. Cheeselymoon (talk) 21:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The links in the article lead to hundreds of Native American full moon names (see e.g. http://americanindian.net/moons.html). This makes the table of names redundant as well as potentially misleading, since it lends a false air of authority to Beard and the Farmers Almanac, both of which are dubious sources. So I'm going to remove that table - and if anyone disagrees they can undue the revision and put it back. Cheeselymoon (talk) 20:34, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  North American names