Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Link: When is the moon visible? And how does it affect the tides?

In many children's stories, and in many adults' stories as well, the moon automatically rises with the sunset and sets at sunrise. Except this isn't really how it works. In my research for a current short story draft, I decided I needed to learn more about the phases of the moon, and about how the moon creates tides. I found this link about moon phases, and this one from the same site about how these phases correspond with tides. I had no idea that the new moon rises at sunrise, and sets at sunset (which would explain why it's so hard to see!).

I hope you find it interesting as well!

8 comments:

  1. The moon detail is one of my favorite parts of both The Lord of the Rings and Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion books. In the first, Tolkien went to great trouble to synchronize his moons, so they rose and set at the right time for each part of the story. And in the second, the world doesn't have a moon at all, which affects all sorts of little things (tides, how the year is divided up, travel at night). But both are so subtly done, I never noticed it until the authors themselves mention it!

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    1. How cool, GeekLady! Thanks for your comment. :)

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  2. Neat links.

    Moon bloopers are relatively common in fiction, including SF and fantasy. Actually, if you understand how the moon phases work, you can use the phase and position of the moon (as observed by your pov character) to indicate approximately what time of the night it is. For instance, a third quarter moon (waning half moon) rises at approximately local midnight.

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    1. Yes; and I had no idea until today. It's not one of those things I keep track of a lot. :) Thanks for the comment.

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    2. My biggest moon blooper pet peeve is in animation, when the artist draws a crescent moon so that the tips go past the midline of the moon and curve around to almost touch. Drives me batty.

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    3. Yes. That would be some sort of lunar eclipse, wouldn't it? Or something...

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  3. You are talking to someone whose first book was rife with werewolves - I wanted them affected by the rising of the moon regardless of what time of day the moon appeared. I plotted out the six book (!) series using an astrological calendar so the action followed the moon phases and never fell into the trap of having spare full moons in less time than was actually possible.

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    1. Makes sense to me! Thanks for your comment, Elaine.

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