Putting Lunar Navigation to Work The Sun and the Moon both traverse our night sky on roughly the same East to West plane. Just like the sun rises in the lower southeastern sky in winter, so does the Moon. The most significant difference between the two’s trajectory is that due to the easterly movement caused by the moon’s actual orbit, the sun seems to move slightly faster than the moon does. If it were possible, such as during a lunar eclipse, for the Sun and the Moon to be in the same spot in the sky one day, then by the same time the following day, the moon will have fallen about 1/30th1 of the way behind the Sun. This ends up being slightly more than twelve degrees per day.2 After fifteen days—half the lunar month—this adds up to 180 degrees. By the end of the same lunar month—another fifteen days—it’s traversed an entire 360 degrees. This actually explains the moon’s phases. The moon does not produce any light of its own. It’s literally just a big chunk of rock3. The light we see from the Moon is nothing more than sunlight, reflected off the surface of the Moon, while the phases of the Moon are caused by the position of the Moon, relative to the Sun and the Earth. When the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth, it is not visible in the night sky, because it’s on the other side of the planet. This is the “New Moon.” There is no moon visible in the night sky. Two days later though, about 24-25 degrees behind the sun, the Moon becomes just barely visible again, for a short time in the sky, to the East of the Sun. Thus it rises in the pre-dawn morning sky, before the Sun rises. At this phase, the Moon will be barely visible as just a tiny sliver of light, and is called the waxing crescent moon4…… Read the rest here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/primi...paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Continue reading...
