New Quirk

Recently, I've found myself noticing moon phases in books. Mostly because authors have been getting them wrong.

It's like this -- the phase of the Moon and its position in the sky relative to the Sun (read: what's lighting it up) are related. That means that the times the Moon is in the sky are also related to its phase, since we tell time principally by the mean solar day.

So, for example, in Mike Carey's Vicious Circle, when he mentions that a cult has to summon a demon on the day of the dark of the moon (New Moon, presumably), at moonrise, it should not be at midnight. At New Moon, the near side of the moon is dark, and the far side is lit -- facing the Sun. That means that the Moon is between Earth and Sun. Consequently, it rises around dawn and sets at sunset. Midnight might seem more ominous for a dark demon-summoning ritual, but the moon that rises at midnight is a third-quarter moon.

Lilith Saintcrow makes the same mistake in Redemption Alley. She has her hero out driving a bit after midnight and note that the moon is both low to the horizon and looking like a fingernail paring (presumably a crescent). Now, unless it's near dawn or Jill Kismet lives in the frigid north (the setting is a fictional city in the southwest), you won't see a crescent moon, especially a thin crescent, low in the sky. In fact, if it's dark out, you're not likely to see a thin crescent at all -- it's nearly or just past New Moon, so it's still close in the sky.

(Heck, I've been watching the moon in my Zelda game to see what the phases and rise-set times are doing -- not even Majora's Mask* -- but at least Hyrule has enough magic floating around that I can believe the moon might not follow our moon's behavior.)

Maybe I ought to do this as an Astro 101 assignment -- take out the relative passages from these books and play 'spot what's wrong with it'.

* The moon in Majora's Mask scares the crap out of me. Because I know it's going to fall on my head -- especially in the first part of the game, before you get your ocarina back and can reverse time to live the same three days over and over again. (That and the Kafei and Anju quest which requires staying past midnight on the last day.)

New Quirk

Recently, I've found myself noticing moon phases in books. Mostly because authors have been getting them wrong.

It's like this -- the phase of the Moon and its position in the sky relative to the Sun (read: what's lighting it up) are related. That means that the times the Moon is in the sky are also related to its phase, since we tell time principally by the mean solar day.

So, for example, in Mike Carey's Vicious Circle, when he mentions that a cult has to summon a demon on the day of the dark of the moon (New Moon, presumably), at moonrise, it should not be at midnight. At New Moon, the near side of the moon is dark, and the far side is lit -- facing the Sun. That means that the Moon is between Earth and Sun. Consequently, it rises around dawn and sets at sunset. Midnight might seem more ominous for a dark demon-summoning ritual, but the moon that rises at midnight is a third-quarter moon.

Lilith Saintcrow makes the same mistake in Redemption Alley. She has her hero out driving a bit after midnight and note that the moon is both low to the horizon and looking like a fingernail paring (presumably a crescent). Now, unless it's near dawn or Jill Kismet lives in the frigid north (the setting is a fictional city in the southwest), you won't see a crescent moon, especially a thin crescent, low in the sky. In fact, if it's dark out, you're not likely to see a thin crescent at all -- it's nearly or just past New Moon, so it's still close in the sky.

(Heck, I've been watching the moon in my Zelda game to see what the phases and rise-set times are doing -- not even Majora's Mask* -- but at least Hyrule has enough magic floating around that I can believe the moon might not follow our moon's behavior.)

Maybe I ought to do this as an Astro 101 assignment -- take out the relative passages from these books and play 'spot what's wrong with it'.

* The moon in Majora's Mask scares the crap out of me. Because I know it's going to fall on my head -- especially in the first part of the game, before you get your ocarina back and can reverse time to live the same three days over and over again. (That and the Kafei and Anju quest which requires staying past midnight on the last day.)