Howling at the “Full Moon!”

Okay, so your wife posted your bail, and you’re back home, after spending the twilight cooling your heels in the clink.

“Why for they put the bracelets on ya, and haul yer butt downtown??”

Maybe it was because you were caught standing in your front yard in your underwear, smelling like a brewery exploded all over you, gazing up into the heavens through a empty toilet paper roll. Face it, you make the neighbors nervous!

Who cares if last night was a full moon, to beat all “full moons!”

Listen bucko, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble (and 10% of a $5,000 bail bond) if you’d read this first!

Every card-carrying nerdy boy (and girl, nerd girls are sexy, too!) knows that the Moon is never full.

“Full Moon, “Santa Claus,” the “Easter Bunny,” and “a Prom Date with a Playboy Bunny…” They’re all a load a crap fed to us by the government, to keep us docile and stupid.

That’s right, that moon you were looking up at is the same old moon that ’s been shadowing you all your pathetic and futile life.

What? Let’s back up a moment. Astrologers… um… er… wait a minute while I fact-check…

Astronomers say that the actual moment of Full Moon (that time when Luna is directly opposite to Sol in the night sky) can be found in any old almanac.

Hey, if you’re feeling really lazy, you can even look it up on the Internet. This happens all the time (not the “lazy lookin up” part… wait, yes it does!), so don’t worry if your beer-drinking gets in the way of your star-gazing, every now and again.

Remember, a full moon occurs each time the Moon has swung around on its roughly 29-day orbit.

(For some reason I keep picturing my wife in my head, right about now. Hmmm…)

But, if you have an IQ above about 30, you have to admit that the Moon is officially “full” for only one minute. A minute before it’s full, it’s called a “waxing gibbous.”

Now, I thought a “waxing gibbous” was a chimp at a beauty spa, but noooo, it’s a high-tech, cosmo term for “not yet, you impatient jerk!”

Now, a minute after the full moon, it’s a “whining…er… um… waning gibbous.”

This is where your waxing gibbous starts complaining about everything under the sun, literally. Gawd, I hate monkeys!

But, it gets even trickier. Now you better sit down, because this next part is probably gonna bend a few of your brain cells. The mechanics of the celestial alignment –  (it isn’t a New Age rock band) the Sun, Earth,  and the Moon get all cued up, in a straight line, and this further complicate “the blessed event,” i.e. the full moon.

Remember what your science teacher harped about in grade school, while you were trying to sleep? The  Moon can appear 100 percent sunlit from Earth only if it is diametrically opposite to the Sun in the sky.

I have this same “diametrically opposed” problem with my wife all the time, and it usually ends up with a “full moon,” too, with some flying kitchenware thrown in, literally…

But at that same moment,  the Moon would be positioned in the middle of Earths’ shadow — (Kinda like your overprotective mom) basking in total eclipse.  Well, duh! So in any month when there is no eclipse, there is an ever-so-slight sliver of darkness somewhere on the lunar limb throughout those hours — or that moment — when the Moon is passing through “full” phase.

Jeezo! Try saying all that in one breath! I don’t make this stuff up, campers. I got it out of a book! Okay, it was really a magazine, but you get the idea. It’s all official, like. Hello! Does anybody care? I know. I’m boring you. Well suck it up, science is boring! But, if you pay attention, you might do well at “Jeopardy,” some day!

So why isn’t there an eclipse every month?

We don’t get  a lunar eclipse every month because the plane of the Moon’s orbit is inclined 5 percent with respect to the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The kneebone’s connected to the shinbone… Only once every few months does a Full Moon occur, because the orbits have to be lined up just right to create an eclipse. Well, duh, again!

People often refer to the Moon as being full a day or two before or after the actual date of fullness.

These people are usually Pagans overeager to dance nekkid in the moonlight out in the woods, but whatever…  Yet, a closer inspection (of the MOON, not the naked Pagans, you sicko!) will usually reveal that the Moon is not completely fully lit up on these prior or subsequent days, but is indeed gibbous or slightly out of roundness. Those damned monkeys, anyways…

So, inquiring Pagans want to know… just how long is the interval during which the full Moon seems to appear perfectly round? And when can this effect first be noted with binoculars or the unaided eye?

‘Cuz if there’s naked Pagans, I’m getting out my binoculars! I don’t want to miss nothing!

In the course of sixty ticks of Big Ben, the Moon looks like it moves eastward against the background stars at roughly its own diameter (about one half a degree, give or take). Because of this, the lunar phase angle (the angle of illumination that the Moon makes in its dance with the Sun) changes, but this happens very slowly. If you were standing on the Moon, you could outrun it with a bicycle pretty easily, as this happens at about 10 miles per hour.

Hell, because of the change in gravity, you could probably just out-bounce it, and leave it in the dust…

Anyway, what once was a full moon (for about a New York minute) turns into a slightly lopsided crater canvas, if you watch closely.

You Mr. Science graduates can prove this to your friends and neighbors pretty easily.  When the full moon occurs, turn your binoculars away from the Pagans, and look closely at the edge of the big, shiny disk. 

I know you’re afraid you’re gonna miss something, but have you ever noticed that the nekkid pagans you see, are always the ones you wish would put their clothes back on?

Now, remembering what you last saw (the REAL moon, not the pagans!), go back in the house, watch about 12 re-runs of your favorite brain-killing sit-com, and then go back outside. You’ll welcome the exercise, because you can only take so much of John Ritter on “Three’s Company,” before you wanna get up and leave the room!

By then, anyone looking carefully enough with binoculars should be able to detect that the Pagans have all gotten tired and returned home to chant their mantras, or something… Wait, that’s not it…

When you look again, what you’ll actually see is a slight sliver of darkness (astronomers call this “the terminator”) along the western, or right edge of the Moon.

So, It’s Swartzenegger’s fault! Damn that Arnold, I knew he was gonna be trouble…

~ by hired4genius on June 19, 2008.