Full moon

“ Well, that is the sort of illumination which the lunar man will enjoy under these circumstances; all the features of his country will be brightly lighted up by the full earth. Of course, this earth-lighted side of the moon cannot be compared in brilliancy with the sun-lighted side, but the brightness will still be perceptible, so that when from the earth we look at the moon, we see this glow distributed all over the dark portion; that is, we observe the feebly lighted globe clasped in the brilliant arms of the crescent. ”

“ Although the moon is a pleasing and surprising telescopic object when full, the most interesting views of her features are obtained at other seasons. If we follow the moon as she waxes or wanes, we see the true nature of that rough and bleak mountain scenery, which when the moon is full is partially softened through the want of sharp contrasts of light and shadow. If we watch, even for half an hour only, the changing form of the ragged line separating light from darkness on the moon's disc, we cannot fail to be interested. ”

“ In the full glare of day the dazzling splendor of the sun obliterates and renders invisible these appendages, which only shine with comparatively feeble light. It fortunately happens that the moon is just large enough to intercept the whole of the direct light from the sun, or rather, I should say, from the central parts of the sun. ”

“ In Summer the Full Moons are low, and their stay is short above the Horizon, when the nights are short, and we have least occasion for Moon-light: in Winter they go high, 146and stay long, above the Horizon when the nights are long, and we want the greatest quantity of Moon-light. ”

“ As the Moon can never be full but when she is opposite to the Sun, and the Sun is never in Virgo and Libra but in our autumnal months, ’tis plain that the Moon is never full in the opposite Signs, Pisces and Aries, but in these two months. And therefore we can have only two Full Moons in the year, which rise so near the time of Sun-set for a week together as above-mentioned. The former of these is called the Harvest Moon, and the latter the Hunter’s Moon.
Why the Moon’s regular rising is never perceived but in Harvest. ”

“ At A the moon is between the earth and the sun, or in the phase of new moon. The lunar hemisphere facing the earth is now buried in night, except so far as the light reflected from the earth illuminates it, and this illumination, it is interesting to remember, is about fourteen times as great—reckoned by the relative areas of the reflecting surfaces—as that which the full moon sends to the earth. An inhabitant of the moon, standing beside the cross, sees the earth in the form of a huge full moon directly above his head, but, as far as the sun is concerned, it is midnight for him. ”

“ The earth stays always in the same spot in the sky, just where we see it now as a huge crescent near the sun. As the sun sinks toward the horizon, the earth waxes like the moon seen from the earth, reaching its half-stage at sunset. Then, through the long lunar night it grows, until, at seven of our days after sundown, it becomes full. Then it wanes again, reaching the half at sunrise a week later. If we had landed on the other side of the moon, the earth would have remained invisible. ”

“ In consequence of the motion of the earth in its orbit around the sun, its shadow constantly moves eastward, like a great pencil of darkness sweeping straight across the heavens, but invisible to us except when the moon, traveling eastward faster than the shadow, overtakes and passes through it. This does not by any means happen at every full moon, because, for a reason which I shall explain presently, the moon usually passes either above or below the shadow of the earth, and thus escapes an eclipse. ”

“ The Full Moon, which we have at present, is a complete round disk, and is always seen directly opposite to the place of the sun, so that she rises when the sun sets. The moon at last quarter is again a half circle, and appears on the meridian in the south at sunrise. The waning moon is like the new moon, crescent-shaped, but the convexity of the bow faces the rising sun, and she is visible only in the morning sky just as dawn begins. ”

“ It is a natural consequence of this arrangement, to render the moon's light the most beneficial to us, by giving it to us in greatest abundance, when we have least of the sun's light, and giving it to us most sparingly, when the sun's light is greatest. Thus, during the long nights of Winter, the full moon runs high, and continues a very long time above the horizon; while in mid-summer, the full moon runs low, and is above the horizon for a much shorter period. ”

“ Hence we find that, however brilliant the moon may appear at night—in the day time she appears as obscure as a small portion of dusky cloud to which she happens to be adjacent, and reflects no more light than a portion of whitish cloud of the same size. And as the full moon fills only the ninety thousandth part of the sky, it would require at least ninety thousand moons to produce as much light as we enjoy in the day-time under a cloudy sky. ”

“ What has been said about the true new moon is to be understood also, proportionately, about the true full moon. For when, with respect to the equations of the centers, the moon shall be distant on the mechanism by a full semicircle from the sun (also in the heavens it will be truly in opposition to the sun) there will be a true full moon. ”

“ Writers take the same liberties very frequently. A newspaper correspondent, during the Franco-Prussian war, described the full moon as shining upon a scene of desolation on a particular night, when really there was no moon to be seen. ”

“ And, consequently, any one may know with the certainty that is due to the use of our senses that the moon assuredly does not possess a smooth and polished surface, but one rough and uneven, and, just like the face of the earth itself, is everywhere full of vast protuberances, deep chasms, and sinuosities. ”

“ Such a passage, or 'occultation,' offers two observations: the 'disappearance,' as the moon comes up to the star and covers it; the 'reappearance,' as it leaves it again, and so discloses it.
THE NEW ALTAZIMUTH.
(From a photograph by Mr. Lacey.)
Except at the exact time of full moon, we do not see the entire face of our satellite; one edge or 'limb' is in darkness. As the moon therefore passes over the star, either the limb at which the star disappears, or that at which it reappears, is invisible to us. To watch an occultation at the bright limb is pretty ”

“ Chapter LIII It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud. ”

“ It is one of the compensations that nature offers us. Since the Full Moon is necessarily situated opposite to the point occupied by the sun, and since the sun is far south of the equator in midwinter, it follows that at the same season the Full Moon appears high above the equator in the northern hemisphere. You 171will, perhaps, permit me to show you a diagram intended to explain this phenomenon. ”

“ On this night I had searched for them without success, fearing to find them; they were nowhere in the house, nor about the moonlit lawn. For, although the sun is lost to us forever, the moon, full-orbed or slender, remains to us. Sometimes it shines by night, sometimes by day, but always it rises and sets, as in that other life. ”

“ The time the moon is going back, the blood that is in a person does be weakening, but when the moon is strong, the blood that moves strong in the same way. And it to be at the full, it drags the wits along with it, the same as it drags the tide. ”

“ The moon is at her full, and, riding high,
Floods the calm fields with light;
The airs that hover in the summer-sky
Are all asleep to-night. ”

“ How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air,
No mist obscures, no little cloud
Breaks the whole serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory the majestic moon
Rolls thro the dark blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. ”

“ Here the sun hangs like a big gold jewel edged with a tiny fringe of scarlet, the pearly petals of its delicate corona far outstretched against the star-filled sky. The brilliant ball of the earth, which would appear almost 13 times as large in area as the moon, rests immovable and ever present, its great globe turning completely around every 24 hours. Also, as the moon does to us, it would exhibit to an observer on the moon an interesting variety of phases, mammoth crescents, quarters and disks. Such a sky!—a huge white planet, a flower-like sun and multitudes of unwinking stars. ”

“ Should the planet happen to be at the height of her splendour when the ceremony is performed, their future life will be a scene of festivity, and all its paths strewed over with rosebuds of delight. But when her tapering horns are turned towards the north, passion becomes frost-bound, and seldom thaws till the genial season again approaches. From the moon they not only draw prognostications of the weather, but according to their creed also discover future events. ”

“ One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver. ”

“ For an hour or two after sunset and before sunrise, we receive rays of reflected and refracted light from the atmosphere above us, which spread a soft, pleasing illumination over the landscape, and render all objects more or less distinctly visible. But if you were on the moon in certain situations, the passage from day to night or from night to-day would be as rapid as the falling or rising of a curtain. Imagine yourself standing on the western wall of Vendelinus or Petavius at the time when this photograph was taken. ”

“ Now a lunar spectator watching the sun eclipsed by the earth, would see, during totality and at a coup d’œil, every point around our world upon which the sun is setting on one side and rising upon the other. To every part of the earth around what is then the margin, as seen from the moon, the sun is upon the horizon, shining through a great thickness of atmosphere, reddening it, and being reddened by it wherever the vaporous conditions conduce to that colouration. ”

“ Then her “visions of the night” are at times sublimely beautiful. Her star-decked vault of heaven, absolutely free from all mists and fogs and damps, seems so high and vast. The stars glisten and twinkle with wondrous clearness. The flashing meteors fade out but slowly, and the moon is so white and bright that her shadows cast are often as vivid as those of the sun in some other lands. ”

“ And now for a time let us turn attention from the lunar sky to the scenery of the lunar landscape. Let us, in imagination, take our stand high upon the eastern side of the rampart of one of the great craters. Height, it must be remarked, is more essential on the moon to command extent of view than upon the earth, for on account of the comparative smallness of the lunar sphere the dip of the horizon is very rapid. ”

“ Idles the night wind through the dreaming firs,
That waking murmur low,
As some lost melody returning stirs
The love of long ago;
And through the far, cool distance, zephyr fanned.
The moon is sinking into shadow-land. ”

“ But upon the Moon there is no dawn, and the darkness of night envelops the orb until the appearance of the edge of the Sun’s disc above the horizon, then his dazzling rays illumine the summits and loftiest peaks of the lunar mountains whilst yet their sides and bases are wrapped in deep gloom. Since the pace of the Sun across the lunar heavens is 28 times slower than it is with us, there is continuous sunshine on the Moon for 304 hours, and this long day—equal to about a fortnight of our time—is succeeded by a night of similar duration. ”

“ The full African moon poured down its light from the blue sky into the wide, lonely plain. ”

“ No one can fail to notice the beautiful set of phases through which the moon passes every month. A little after the almanac has announced 'new moon,' she begins to appear as a thin crescent low down in the West, and setting shortly after the sun. Night by night we can watch her moving eastward among the stars, and showing more and more of her illuminated surface, until at first quarter half of her disc is bright. ”

“ Many of the mountains of the moon are, foot for foot, as lofty as the highest mountains on the earth, while all of them, in proportion to the size of the moon's globe, are much larger than the earth's mountains. It is obvious, then, that the sunshine, as it creeps over these Alpine landscapes in the moon, casting the black shadows of the peaks and craters many miles across the plains, and capping the summits of lofty mountains with light, while the lower regions far around them are yet buried in night, must clearly reveal the character of the lunar surface. ”

“ This is made quite certain by the discoveries of astronomers. Rains, dews, oceans, lakes, bail, snow, clouds, are all unknown to the moon. Nothing shields its surface from the burning rays of the sun. Wherever the light of that fierce luminary penetrates the moon's surface is incessantly hot. ”

“ The moon has no atmosphere; no rain falls on her barren surface; no clouds move above her; no tempests howl in her caverns; no snows crown her volcanic peaks; no sunsets shine in gorgeous colors; there are no violet and crimson skies at dawn. The moon is the kingdom of eternal calm, and sleep, and stillness. If any blow disturbs the lunar surface, it is from the fall of meteors rained upon it through space. It is [Pg 77] to our atmosphere we owe the glories of the clouds, the beneficence of waters, the magic of frost changes, the rush of storms, the balmy breezes, the sky. ”