Saturday, September 5, 2009

The Moon tonight


The moon, almost full, but with an ever so slight shadow on his right side that will be nibbling away the disc. Do you have some rule to know if it is waxing or waning, once the moon has become a crescent?

4 comments:

jude said...

i have no rules. i just wait and see.

Ouno Design said...

Yes! My mathematician father was constantly coming up with mnemonics for these things! For the moon, it's either a capital C or a capital D. If you are thinking New Moon first (waxing) or Waning Moon, the order is *the opposite* of the order of the letters in the alphabet (that is, in this case, C comes AFTER D). So if the moon looks like a C, or is about to look like a C, then it's an old or waning moon. Other people find this mnemonic hard to grasp, but once you've got it, you never forget. I have never found another mnemonic for this - maybe someone else has a better one. Nice photo, Eva!

Eva said...

o gosh, I could never remember that!
We have a rule in German, a round written "a" for "abnehmend", waning, and an old German "z" which starts with a crescent open to the left side, this is "zunehmend", waxing.

Judy said...

my sister-in-law once shared that the moon is shaped like the letter 'b' when it is waxing or 'born' and like the letter 'd' when it is waning or dying. that helps me.

xo