Talk:Lunar phase

First and last quarter
I think the moon is exactly half when the earth and sun are 90° apart from the moon, not when moon and sun are 90° apart from the earth. And the reason is that for the moon to be exactly half, the sun would have to be shining directly on the edge of the visible part of the moon, meaning that the sun and earth would have to be 90° from the moon. Which means about 89.857° from the earth if the sun is 400X farther than the moon. The Channel of Random (talk) 16:32, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * You are correct. And there seems to be several other places where the terms are mixed up in this article.
 * The moon is at dichotomy (half-lit) when it has swung 89.85° through it's orbit around Earth, NOT 90°.
 * About 6 hours after the moon is exactly half lit, when it's more than half lit (50.1%?), THEN it becomes a quarter moon, when at quadrature (90°). I think...
 * This article seems to say exactly that... right before contradicting itself and saying the opposite.
 * But all the sources I've found online are sloppy and woefully conflate "Quadrature_(astronomy)" with "dichotomy" with "quarter moon" (even NASA!!!) so I'm not sure what the definition of a quarter moon is, nor even if there is a scientific definition for a quarter moon, versus just a sloppy, common term for any time when it is around 89ish or 90ish degrees until 134ish or 136ish degrees +/-. Skintigh (talk) 23:06, 9 December 2022 (UTC)


 * The official and traditional astronomical definition is given in the first footnote. Why would you want to define the lunar phases as seen from the Moon as most people actually live on the Earth? I agree that the article should clearly distinguish between the quarter phases and dichotomy. AstroLynx (talk) 12:14, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Art and Culture

 * This page is linked by a few articles that use the crescent moon as a symbol, and it would benefit from some discussion about the prominent symbolic uses of a crescent moon Immcarle183 (talk) 07:17, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

General

 * Six Millennium Catalog of Phases of the Moon
 * U.S. Naval Service on Moon Phase / What the Moon Looks Like Today (United States Naval Observatory)
 * Moon Phase For Any Date (Full moon date analysis from 1900 - 2050)
 * Full Moon Names
 * Current Moon Calendar
 * The Length of the Lunar Cycle (numerical integration analysis)

Educational aids
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Aicraftor (talk • contribs) 17:40, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Open Source Physics Lunar Phase Model
 * Lunar phase simulator (animation)
 * Starchild: Moonlight Madness Lunar Phases Game
 * Names and Images of the 8 moon phases
 * Astrophysics Science Project Integrating Research & Education: Lunar Phases Quiz
 * Lunar Phase Image Sets In High-Resolution (1200x1200 pixels) at 1-Degree Intervals - Views of the Moon From 4 Sides at Any Relative Phase
 * Front/Back/East/West Lunar Phase Explorers
 * Mnemonic devices for the Lunar phases
 * Moon activity idea from Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Calendar
The section "Calendar" should be about the use by humanity of the lunar phases as a form of calendar. Instead it takes three paragraphs to explain that lunar months and Gregorian calendar months have different lengths and so are not in phase. Shock - not.

So two questions for debate: 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) does the section as it stands have any value? If so, it needs a different section name.
 * 2) A section about calendrical use of lunar phases should actually say something about the subject. Would it be enough to just copy the lead of lunar calendar or do we need something a bit longer that also describes lunisolar calendars too. And maybe even Blue Moons.
 * I don't think the section is important enough to keep.
 * Some sort of section, even shorter than the lunar calendar lead, with a "Main article" template, would be appropriate.
 * When I saw mention of lunar phases and the Gregorian calendar, I thought of the aspects of the Gregorian calendar that are used to calculate the date of Easter. But that is exhaustively covered in other articles, and I don't think it needs to be mentioned here.Jc3s5h (talk) 16:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I have deleted the section about lunar and calendar month coincidences. Consensus is that it had no value. I have added a brief section on use of lunar phases for "timekeeping" (long-range time, as in "four moons ago" rather than "four minutes ago").--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:03, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Almost repetition
The two initial files in the article are almost the same. – Hamid Hassani (talk) 08:00, 3 September 2023 (UTC)


 * They're not the same at all. The first one shows the lunar phases and librations as viewed from the Northern Hemisphere and the second one from the Southern Hemisphere . – Hamid Hassani (talk) 02:39, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Distinction between common vernacular "lunar phase" and astronomical "lunar phase"?
I was recently educated re: the distinction between "lunar phase" as commonly understood: the percentage illumination of the lunar disc, and as it is apparently considered in astronomical context: defined by the alignment of the sun/moon/earth system as viewed from the perspective of the ecliptic. E.g. today there was an eclipse of the sun, which peaked at 9:20am from my location, which intuitively must be the new moon since the moon face is never less illuminated than when the sun is directly behind it, but the official "new moon" time was 10:55am, because that was when the moon was directly between the sun and earth from the perspective of the ecliptic plane. It seems like this distinction should be made in this article, and I would add a section but I don't feel qualified to do so. Any takers? Chconnor (talk) 00:36, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Hat note
I appear to have upset user:AukusRuckus by questioning their decision to move the confusing hatnote from a single arguably confusing section to the top of the article.

IMO, the effect of that note at the top of the article is to assert that the whole article is confusing. That, at least to me, seems a significant overreaction, because it is not a reasonable assessment of the article as a whole. (I accept to call it "extreme" was, well, extreme and I withdraw that adjective but the rest of my challenge stands.)

Before applying such a full-on mark of condemnation to an article, I would expect to see a talk page topic that makes the case that the whole article is a hopeless case, completely incomprehensible, beyond repair. I see no such case. If the state of the article is anything less than that severe, then the tag is an overreaction.

In the final analysis, WP:so fix it applies unless you really don't have any idea what it is trying to communicate. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:42, 29 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I didn't apply it, though — someone else did. So "WP:so fix it" in no way applies to edit, but the original tagger's. (And if you took your own advice, you'd have "just fixed it" by simply removing he offending hatnote.) There  a talk page discussion on it, above, in fact. I just followed what I thought had been intended (we don't put banners in the middle of text. Such locations require an inline tag).
 * What I objected to was the wholly unnecessary reversion: Just remove the hatnote. You undid the DAB link fix for no good reason, one that I had mentioned, front-and-centre, in my ES. There was no need to just undo everything willy-nilly.
 * I take your point about it being obtrusive (but you should try stumbling around and finding a huge block like it in the notes section, when you can't see well) for a relatively small problem: So just remove that and nothing else. Only revert as a last resort, especially if you're not willing to look at what else you're reverting.
 * (So, you realise I was  the editor who put the tag into the article? From your comment, it seems you think I was ... Could you look at the diffs please? I can see how I may appear ott to you, but my edits—which I really enjoy doing—are rather more effortful than the average person's, I imagine, due to a visual disability: So I can get in a bit of a tizz when they're undone.
 * In the final analysis, this kind of reversion is just discourteous. Nevermind, expect it'll all come out in the wash. AukusRuckus (talk) 17:14, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * but am I right in saying that it was your edit that moved the "confusing" tag from the section to the whole article? I'm editing on mobile at present and am aware how its limitations can generate misunderstandings. I hope that this is not another such.
 * I recognise your edit was made in good faith and if we should cross paths again I will aim to ask questions first and shoot afterwards. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:05, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Date format
The date format of the article has been inconsistent. A recent edit by changed a few dates from the mdy format to the dmy format. The earliest version of the article I found that has dates, from January 2006, uses the mdy format. The earliest version I found that has citations with dates uses a style that is no longer accepted, yyyy-mm-dd for publication dates. I suggest the format for dates outside citations be restored to mdy, and the mdy format be used within citations as well. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:02, 18 December 2023 (UTC) lllllllllllllllllllllllllll

What about history?
I came to this page hoping to find some imformation about early theories to explain the phenomenon. I do not know why this is completely omitted. Anyone knowledgable in the subject, please create a section, hopefully it will be expanded overtime. DivinePtr (talk) 13:50, 17 April 2024 (UTC)