- Does the Phase of the Moon cause craziness during the Full Moon?
- Is the Full Moon responsible for Baby Births?
- Will your Garden Harvest yield more and better quality produce if planted during the proper moon phase?
- Will there be enough dirt to fill a hole back up if the hole is dug in the wrong sign?
- Will your lawns grass grow slower if you cut it in the correct sign of the Moon?
Many other Professionals, police, bartenders and Papa Dennis and his deceased Mother and Father believe otherwise. The reality is that people who have farmed, and ranched, and dealt with the elements of nature successfully for many years rely on the phases of the moon to provide them with proper times to plant, drill for water, check for new-born animals on their farms and ranches. During my years in the construction industry, many times the foreman of the crew would tell us, we'll have to come back and bring fill dirt to add to the area where we just dug and inserted devices underground. There should have been too much dirt and we should have had to remove some. When questioned, the the foreman simply said there that we would need for fill dirt because of the sign of the moon. I never knew that foreman to be wrong.
We should all remember that when calendars aren't available that the one way to record the time of year is by the phase of the moon. Native American Indians would set appointments by the changes of the phases of the moon. "We will meet at Tall Mountain in Three Moons", meaning that when the current phase of the moon had appeared three times. Wow, that's really awesome, isn't it?
However Here are the facts about why the moon has different phases as viewed from the earth's surface.
The phases of the Moon are related to (actually, caused by) the relative positions of the Moon and Sun in the sky. For example, New Moon occurs when the Sun and Moon are quite close together in the sky. Full Moon occurs when the Sun and Moon are at nearly opposite positions in the sky - which is why a Full Moon rises about the time of sunset, and sets about the time of sunrise, for most places on Earth. First and Last Quarters occur when the Sun and Moon are about 90 degrees apart in the sky. In fact, the two "half Moon" phases are called First Quarter and Last Quarter because they occur when the Moon is, respectively, one- and three-quarters of the way around the sky (i.e., along its orbit) from New Moon. The relationship of the Moon's phase to its angular distance in the sky from the Sun allows us to establish very exact definitions of when the primary phases occur, independent of how they appear. Technically, the phases New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon, and Last Quarter are defined to occur when the excess of the apparent ecliptic (celestial) longitude of the Moon over that of the Sun is 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees, respectively.
These definitions are used when the dates and times of the phases are computed for almanacs, calendars, etc. Because the difference between the ecliptic longitudes of the Moon and Sun is a monotonically and rapidly increasing quantity, the dates and times of the phases of the Moon computed this way are instantaneous and well defined.
