It turns out I'm not the first to consider that if there is a new moon
there should be an old moon. Maybe you know all about this; nobody I
asked did. Vivian found a mention of it in a book and we did some
calendar study and learned a little more.
The full cycle of the moon is from new moon to new moon. That's simple enough. Halfway through the cycle is the full moon - of course. Halfway between the new moon and the full moon (half of a half cycle) is the quarter moon which looks like half of a full moon. Wow, I didn't see that coming! It goes like this:
What it was that Vivian found was that the part from step 4 to 5 above is called the old moon. Now I want to brag that being a smart-ass led to learning something. Okay, that's enough. Now, returning to smart-assness I can't help wondering, might a full moon be more properly called a half moon? - and what about calling the last quarter a three-quarter moon?
So one thing that was new to me in all this is that the term quarter moon refers to the position in the cycle, not the amount of the moon that you can see. I never knew that and I'm sure many times I have mentioned a half moon to people (meaning that I could see half the moon) and nobody has ever questioned it.
Am I the only one that never learned all this or just the only one to admit it? I took a few minutes to look in encyclopedias and it's all very clear. I also found a nice web site that shows the whole thing. Take a look for yourself.
Perhaps you are one of the people who knew all this before I started. Well, here's something to compensate you for reading this far. It's a picture of a quarter moon.
