Date: Fri, Mar 15 2002
Sender: Simon Cassidy <scassidy@earthlink.net>
From: East Carolina University Calendar discussion List
Subject: Re: The Week of Weeks of Nights of Full MoonSimon Cassidy wrote (Mon, 18 Oct 1999):
>
> Dear Friends,
> since Peter has added my original Week of Weeks message to his web-pages,
> (at http://www.hermetic.ch/cal_stud/cassidy/weekof.htm) and since that
> first page of the almanac has just run its course, I enclose herein the
> second page of this full moon almanac (from September 99 to March 2002):
> ......
Simon continues:
The second page (at http://www.hermetic.ch/cal_stud/cassidy/weekof2.htm)
having now run its course, I enclose below the third page of my rule-based
(see last two paragraphs below for the rules) full-moon almanac:
************************************************************************* THE WEEK OF WEEKS OF NIGHTS OF FULL-MOON, SIMON CASSIDY, 2002. ************************************************************************* PAGE 3 EVEN STRAND ODD STRAND ______________________ 2002 SATUR DAY APRIL 27 2002 2002 MAY 26 SUN DAY________________________ 2002 2002 ______________________MON DAY 2002 2002 TUES DAY JUNE 25 2002 2002 JULY 24 WEDNESDAY________________________ 2002 2002 ______________________THURS DAY 2002 2002 FRI DAY AUGUST 23 2002 2002 SEPTEMBER 21 SATUR DAY________________________ 2002 2002 ______________________SUN DAY 2002 2002 MON DAY OCTOBER 21 2002 2002 NOVEMBER 19 TUES DAY________________________ 2002 2002 ______________________WEDNESDAY 2002 2003 THURS DAY DECEMBER 19 2002 2003 JANUARY 17 FRI DAY________________________ 2002 2003 ______________________SATUR DAY 2003 2003 SUN DAY FEBRUARY 16 2003 2003 MARCH 17 MON DAY________________________ 2003 2003 ______________________TUES DAY 2003 2003 WEDNESDAY APRIL 16 2003 2003 MAY 15 THURS DAY________________________ 2003 2003 MAY 16 FRI DAY 2003 2003 ______________________SATUR DAY JUNE 14 2003 2003 SUN DAY________________________ 2003 2003 JULY 14 MON DAY 2003 2003 ______________________TUES DAY AUGUST 12 2003 2003 WEDNESDAY________________________ 2003 2003 SEPTEMBER 11 THURS DAY 2003 2003 ______________________FRI DAY OCTOBER 10 2003 2003 SATUR DAY________________________ 2003 2003 NOVEMBER 9 SUN DAY 2003 2003 ______________________MON DAY DECEMBER 8 2003 2004 TUES DAY________________________ 2003 2004 JANUARY 7 WEDNESDAY 2004 2004 ______________________THURS DAY FEBRUARY 5 2004 2004 FRI DAY________________________ 2004 2004 MARCH 6 SATUR DAY 2004 2004 ______________________SUN DAY APRIL 4 2004 2004 MON DAY________________________ 2004 2004 MAY 4 TUES DAY 2004 2004 ______________________WEDNESDAY JUNE 2 2004 2004 THURS DAY________________________ 2004 2004 JULY 2 FRI DAY 2004 2004 ______________________SATUR DAY JULY 31 2004 2004 SUN DAY AUGUST 1 2004 2004 AUGUST 30 MON DAY________________________ 2004 2004 ______________________TUES DAY 2004 2004 WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 29 2004 2004 OCTOBER 28 THURS DAY________________________ 2004 2004 ______________________FRI DAY 2004 *************************************************************************The above is one cycle of a repeating pattern of 49 nights of full-moon for each
of the two strands of full-moons (the sixteen-slot even strand and the sixteen-slot
odd strand). I use the words "even strand" and "odd strand" because I originally
visualized the scheme as a pair of necklaces (or one two-stranded necklace) with
one pearl for each night of full-moon and thin coral cylinders to divide the
pearls into slots (groups of three or four consecutive full-moon nights). Seven
distinct grades or colors of pearl would represent the cycle of weekdays and I
use the odd/even terminology without any bias towards either strand but only
because I am used to using the lunation numbers given by Jean Meeus in his lunar
eclipse canon.
The above scheme was inspired by a desire for a lunar calendar with emphasis
on the several week-days, each month, when the moon's light is available
all night and also for a lunar calendar which separates lunar phase-months into
two classes, depending on whether they are odd or even in sequence. This odd-even
feature has to do with the alternating function of the female ovaries and a
purported natural tendency of ovulation to synch up to the phases of the moon
(when living without artificial night lighting).
The text-based scheme, as set out above, also gives the MONTH-DATE (in UPPER
CASE) of the night(s) for which the moon is predicted by this scheme to be
fullest. The envisaged necklace form would not necessarily contain any such
solar calendar information but would benefit from a pendant indicating the
current position in the lunation and weekday cycles. The solar calendar months
and dates don't repeat from one page (of a week of weeks) to the next,
but the weekdays and lunations do.
This cycle is based on the separation between the periods of full-moon for each
strand. This interval is two lunations long and can usually be reckoned as 8 weeks
and 3 full-moon days. By using a full-moon period of four days for each 32nd. lunar
phase-month (one of the sixteen periods of full-moon on each strand), one can round
out the number of days of full-moon to 49, or a "week of weeks", for each strand.
This "week of weeks" strategy thus improves the approximation of the synodic month
from 29.5 days to exactly 29.53125 days. This is too long by only about 0.00066
days per lunation.
For extrapolations longer than a century, this residual error (in the "week of
weeks" scheme), of one day every 1500 lunations, can be compensated for, by moving
the four-day full-moons (one on each strand of the scheme) forward one slot for
each 3rd. repetition of the cycle (page 3, above, being my first such case).
This is conveniently achieved in the linear text-based scheme above, by merely
moving the dividing line at the bottom of each strand's four-day full-moon period,
upwards to the next text-line. An almanac of 150 pages (each page, as above,
showing a "week of weeks of full-moon nights" for each strand) would thus cover
4802 lunations in 141,806 calendar days (about 388.25 years). This gives a
long-term average lunation of 29.53061 days, with an error of less than a
nucthemeron (24 calendar-hour period or "day") in four thousand years.
-- Dee's Years, Simon Cassidy, 1053 47th.St. Emeryville Ca.94608. ph.510-547-0684.