Shame On Me!

Thursday 16th September 2010
10.25pm I’m ashamed! I know virtually nothing about the cycles of the moon. Been sat here more than half an hour and the yellow half moon plus a day – just seems to be sat there in the sky. I still can’t decide whether it’s setting or rising. Just checked –it’s just east of a south westerly position so I guess it’s setting. But it hardly seems to be moving. Not like the rising moon I watched rising at my last visit which seemed to have shifted up every time I looked. Perhaps the trajectory is different at different stages of it’s cycle. This must be the case. I do know that the full moon rises when the sun sets and the full moon sets at sun rise. Though I must confess that I only discovered this when thinking about doing this residency. So in the mid winter when the nights are longest the moons night journey across the sky will take double the time it would in the mid summer. I love that the pattern is reverse of the sun.

But unlike the sun which tracks back and forth along the horizon steadily throughout the year I suspect the moon moves back and forth but over a period of one month which of course is the cycle of the moon.

I’ve got it. This moon, tonights moon is travelling across the sky on a very gentle angle. It doesn’t seem to be dropping because it’s travelling on only about a 20 degree angle. It’s shifting across the sky quickly but appears to gain nor lose height. The full moon I saw setting at the last visit seemed to drop in minutes.

Soon, in a couple of months I’ll have more freedom to get here to the lighthouse more frequently and I’ll be able to observe these patterns more closely I hope.
I’m pooped. Got to go bed.