Moon - A modest proposal for a complex phenomenon

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[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

Moon – a modest proposal for a complex phenomenon

Here is a suggestion for the moon movements. I've made a new thread, because the suggestion incorporates discussions from all four of Talia's Moon threads.

I have regarded the following decisions as definite (if I’m wrong, let me know):

1. The Moon moves from West to East over the sky (opposite direction to the sun).

2. The Moon rotates around an axis parallel the the disk’s surface, so that a half-moon would look like a half-closed eye.

3. The Santharian year has 366 days exactly.



I made the following assumptions about the moon’s speed:

1.The moon travels over the sky at a constant speed, which is slightly quicker than the sun’s: the moon completes 29 cycles in 28 days.

2. The moon rotates around its own axis at a varying speed. At its quickest, the moon completes a full rotation in one day (1 rotation per day). At its slowest, it completes a full rotation in 28 days (1/28 rotations per day).

3. The moon takes 84 days to decelerate from fastest to slowest speed, and another 84 days to accelerate from slowest to fastest. This adds up to 168 days (24 weeks) for a full acceleration/deceleration cycle. The degree of the acceleration/deceleration is constant.


This idea leads to the following consequences:

All Moon Night: Every four weeks we have an event that we might call “All Moon Night”. On these nights, which always fall on a Prayday, the moon rises at sunset, and sets at sunrise.

Full Moon Night: We have a Full Moon Night once approximately every 24 weeks, if by a “full moon night” we mean a night when the moon is full  during all its time in the night sky. This occurs when the moon happens to be full during a period of very slow rotation, so that it appears as if it remains full on its path through the night. Of course, during the periods of faster rotation, the moon is also sometimes full, but this doesn’t last very long on those occasions.

Moon Gaze: Every 48 weeks, Full Moon Night and All Moon Night fall on the same night. This we may call Moon Gaze. Moon Gaze occurs once in most years, and twice in occasional years. It occurs in a different star constellation each year.

New Moon Night: We have a New Moon Night once approximately every 24 weeks, if by a “new moon night” we mean a night when the moon is dark throughout its time in the night sky. This occurs during a period of very slow rotation, when the moon happens to show its dark side when it's above the disk. Of course, during the periods of faster rotation, the moon is also sometimes dark, but this doesn’t last very long on these occasions.

Moon Slumber: Every 48 weeks, All Moon Night and New Moon Night occur together. This event we could call Moon Slumber. Moon Slumber occurs once in most years, and twice in occasional years. It occurs in a different star constellation each year.

Sleepy Eye Night: Every 48 weeks, an All Moon Night coincides with a maximum speed moon rotation, whereby the moon moves from full to invisible over the course of the 12 hours that the moon needs to travel over the night sky. This event we might call Sleepy Eye Night, for in those nights the moon will perform the motion of a gradually closing eye. Sleepy Eye Night occurs once in most years, and twice in occasional years. It occurs in a different star constellation each year.

Waking Eye Night: Every 48 weeks, an All Moon Night coincides with a maximum speed moon rotation, whereby the moon moves from new to full over the course of the 12 hours that it needs to travel over the night sky. This event we might call Waking Eye Night, for in those nights the moon will perform the motion of a gradually opening eye. Waking Eye Night occurs once in most years, and twice in occasional years. It occurs in a different star constellation each year.

Sleepless Moon: Every 48 weeks, two weeks after Moon Gaze, the moon is visible all day, and is also (more or less) full all day. This event is called Sleepless Moon.

Hidden Moon: Every 48 weeks, two weeks after Moon Slumber, the moon is invisible for a whole day and night (for it rises exactly with the sun, and sets at sunset, but has its dark side turned toward the disk). This event is called “Hidden Moon”.


To help you imagine how these astrological events would move through the year, here is an example:

Let's assume that we have a Sleepy Eye Night on the first day of the year. From this it would follow that the following events occur this year:

1st day of Turning Star: Sleepy Eye Night (in the constellation of the Blindfolded).

25th day of Awakening Earth: Moon Slumber (new moon) (constellation: Sword)

17th day of Rising Sun: Waking Eye Night (constallation: Dove)

9th day of Fallen Leaf: Moon Gaze (full moon) (constellation: Bow)

2nd day of Frozen Rivers: Sleepy Eye Night (constellation: Anvil)


The next year would have the following events:

24th day of Molten Ice: Moon Slumber (constellation: Dancer)

18th day of Singing Birds: Waking Eye (constellation: Snake)

10th day of Sleeping Dreameress: Moon Gaze (constellation: Cup)

2nd day of Dead Tree: Sleepy Eye (constellation: Scythe)



***

So, to sum up: we've got a special astrological event every 12 weeks. There are four types of event, which, if viewed in succession, could be understood as the moon's 'Sleeping Cycle':

In Sleepy Eye Night, the moon is falling asleep. At Moon Slumber, it's snoring away. In Waking Eye Night, the moon wakes up. At Moon Gaze, it is awake and surveys the disk.

***


Any good? Comments welcome!

[Deklitch Hardin]

So a dumb question from me ... do the different events with the moon (I mean the ones you say occur every 48 weeks) all happen on the same night? Reading through your explanation suggests to me it does, but reading through your example, it looks as though it doesn't. In any case, Aura from me.

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

Hi Deklitch, and thanks!  

There are four events that each re-occur in cycles of 48 weeks: these are Sleepy Eye, Slumber, Waking Eye, and Gaze. They can never occur on the same night, though. In fact, there are always exactly 12 weeks between any two of these events. As a foursome, they perform a regular cycle, as the examples with dates (toward the bottom of my post) show. So you have:

Sleepy Eye, followed 12 weeks later by Slumber, followed 12 weeks later by Waking Eye, followed 12 weeks later by Gaze, and so forth.

I hope this clarifies it?


(The confusion might have arisen because, according to the full list of seven special events, there are cases where (other) astrological events co-occur. In fact, such co-occurences define Moon Gaze and Moon Slumber:

Moon Gaze is defined as the co-occurence of All Moon Night and the Full Moon,
while
Moon Slumber is defined as the co-occurence of All Moon Night and the New Moon.)

[Athviaro Shyu-eck-Silfayr]

Aura BUT I think I spotted an inconsistency. From what I read, a Full Moon Night is an All Moon Night with a period of slow rotation. Then how can a Moon Gaze night be any different? I think you made the same mistake with the New Moon Night and the Moon Slumber night, as well? I don't know how complete your calculations are, and maybe I've missed something, but I want to say it in case.

Athviaro

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

Hi Athviaro,

Thanks for that! And aura for checking this thoroughly!

There was an inconsistency indeed. I believe it was an inconsistency in my writing, rather than in my calculations (most of which I haven't shown here, although I'm of course willing to share and discuss them if people are interested) (I doubt that many will be  ).

Changes in limegreen!

My mistake was that I misdefined Full Moon Night and New Moon Night. In fact, neither does necessarily fall on an All Moon Night. Only every 48 weeks they do so.

[Ta`lia of the Seven Jewels]

Shaba! 

That's great! I take it as it is and will construct all around it!

A question though: When are these times of accelerating/decelerating? Around winter/summer solstice or in spring and autumn?

The way you puzzled that out, it has to be like this -  there is no even acceleration/deceleration the whole year long possible, right? I thought if it would be possible to link the acceleration to the moving away of the sun from the disk and the deceleration to the return. (The moon rotates the fastest around his axis when the sun is at the most distant place - or vice versa).
But as I said, I prefer to skip this idea, if it will not work out with your nice arrangement of above.

 

And aura 

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

Hi Talia,

Glad you like it, in general.

In answer to your question:

My model assumes that the moon is always  either accelerating or decelerating, and that the rate of acceleration/deceleration is constant. So even on a Moon Gaze Night, when the moon appears full, it is actually very slowly turning, and even subtly accelerating - but the movement is so slow as to be virtually imperceptible.

I'm sorry, but I forgot about your idea of seasonal variations in moon rotation speed. This idea would require quite a different model. And you would not get the pattern of phenomena I have described. (You might, though, get a different pattern with the same phenomena.) I'm happy to look into it, if you want. Would take a bit of time, though. I'd rather only do it if there is strong support for such an idea, and a likelihood that it would be accepted.

Maybe I should note that there is an imperfect fit between the model mathematics and the phenomena I have described. If we were very precise, we'd have to assume slight fluctuation in the acceleration/deceleration in order to make it all work so neatly. But it's approximately correct!

[Ta`lia of the Seven Jewels]

3. The moon takes 84 days to decelerate from fastest to slowest speed, and another 84 days to accelerate from slowest to fastest. This adds up to 168 days (24 weeks) for a full acceleration/deceleration cycle. The degree of the acceleration/deceleration is constant.

Oh yes, I misunderstood that! I thought it accelerates once a year and decelerates once a year. For I always imagined that these changes would only occur once a year.
And as this does not fit in a year, the  peaks wander also! 

No problem, if we can't relate moon and sun in this way, your 'model' is so nice, that I can easily skip it. Maybe I find another way - sunflares when the moon rotates quickly.. or something similar.

I opt for this version as described above!   

[Deklitch Hardin]

Thanks for that Master Anfang. I think that part of it was me seeing a number of things having 48 weeks in them ... and in my mind that somehow was suggesting they start at the same point in the cycle ... or something like that. My mind is full of NaNoWriMo at the moment and I'm not exactly sure what I'm thinking from one second to the next.

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

Dek: No worries. You don't want to know the mistakes I made in the course of developing these ideas. I've corrected many myself - but of course and despite my best efforts, some may well still be in there, as Athviaro's discovery testifies. Good luck with the novel!

Talia: Well, I'm pleased to bits that you like it! 

[Artimidor Federkiel]

As I said: Someone needs to do the numbers, and obviously Shab did his homework - Looks pretty good from what we can see and if it pleases Talia it must be reeeeeeally good...

Anyway, would love to see these concepts incorporated in the final entry, here's hope it will see the light of day within the next months! 

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

Hey Talia,

Could we create diagrams similar to those that you provided for the moon movements in the Year of Darkness to illustrate what Santharians would see during the "Sleepy Eye Night", "Waking Eye Night", etc.?

Well, I say "Could we create", but I mean "Could you create", as I'm spectacularly inept at drawing. 

Just an idea - but I think some illustrations of the normal moon movements would be a good addition to the entry?

[Ta`lia of the Seven Jewels]

Of course, but they have to be done much more carefully And I'll start only if it is clear what we need

And - shrine first!

[Ta`lia of the Seven Jewels]

Mr Anfang....    

It should be no problem to do a (very long) list when such events occur? Just let us tie one such event , e.g. Moon Gaze to an historical event and then it should just be a matter of pushing that event from the one month (star constellation) to the next as you did already as an example.
What point in history could we take?

We could anchor this to Santhros ascension to the throne. I would propose to let the coronation happen in the month of the rising sun (June), the month which is related to the goddess of peace, Eyasha, which would fit.

But we could take Tiandor‘s coronation also. Would be great, if it turned out, that both coronations fall into the same month. I could easily move the date of our current king a bit up or down. 


Then another proposal:

We could add one more rare event, the opposite to moon gaze: 

Moon gaze:

Moon Gaze: Every 48 weeks, Full Moon Night and All Moon Night fall on the same night. This we may call Moon Gaze. Moon Gaze occurs once in most years, and twice in occasional years. It occurs in a different star constellation each year.

Moon xxx
I think there has to be every 48 weeks, (right in the middle between two moongaze events?) an event, where the moon is visible all day long as full moon.

That would probably be an even more important event than moongaze and moonslumber. Of course there has to be the equivalent of moonslumber also, moonyyy where the moon is not at all visible at day.

It might well be, that the moon is at moonxxx only well visible in the morning and evening, but it could be visible as a faint shadow at midday also. Or sometimes the sun could be clouded and so the moon would appear brighter!

I might even prefer the moonxx to moongaze for a ceremony like the coronation of a king.

The sun and moon very fully visible all day long at the coronation of King xyz!

What do you think?

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

O Lady of the Seven Jewels!

Yep, the events that you describe can indeed take place (we may need to assume that the moon accelerates a bit more slowly after its slowest phase - but I think we can do that and don't need to work out the precise mathematics). I propose the names "Sleepless Moon" and "Hidden Moon" - see the paragraphs with limegreen headings in Post # 1!

Any good?

As far as date calculation is concerned: I agree it's a good idea to pick one historical event and specify the Moon Behaviour you want for that day. From this anchor, I can then work out what the moon would do tonight (eg on the 15th day of Dead Tree, which is today), and tell when eg the next Moon Gaze (etc.) would be.

The date of the year, on which a given Moon Behaviour occurs, repeats every 56 years. For example, say if today (15th of Dead Tree) was Moon Gaze, then the 15th day of Dead Tree would be Moon Gaze again in 56 years (but not before), then again in 112 years, and so forth. So it's not that difficult to go calculate the moon behaviour even for events long in the past.

Just take your pick for an "anchoring event", and I'll be happy to do the rest. 

Just, pretty please: don't ask me for the moon positions for 35 different years in 35 different centuries of Santharian history...

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