Man in the Moon

It's a full moon tonight. The moon waxes and wanes as it goes around the earth, so in fact the full moon isn't a date but an instant - the moment when it stops waxing and starts waning. The instant of full moon this month was 10:25am Universal Time April 20th, several hours before I wrote this post. That time was before dawn in the USA, so actually last night's full moon was a bit fuller than tonight's will be, even though the official date of the full moon this month is 20th. It's just one of those weird facts about full moons.

Another weird fact about full moons is that different people see different things in the moon. I've always seen a man in the moon, and many other people can see the man, too. But in other cultures they see a rabbit, a woman, writing, a frog and many other things. It's fun to try to find other shapes and images in the patterns of seas and highlands on the moon. If you get a clear sky tonight, why not try to see some shapes you've never seen before. Even though it's not quite full in some places, it will still be full enough tonight to do that.

The image I've added to this post is from Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. I've linked the image to the Wikipedia page so you can see the license if you're interested, and find out how to use the image yourself if you want to.