From: Gail Peiterson (peite@punahou.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 08 1999 - 22:03:06 PST
Message-ID: <000e01bf420b$10e54e80$e2551f18@hawaii.rr.com> From: "Gail Peiterson" <peite@punahou.edu> Subject: full moon & winter solstice Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 20:03:06 -1000
Hi All,
Received the following info from Fritz Osell, astronomy instructor at Leeward Community College in Honolulu.
I thought you might all be interested in it. I am not sure of the validity of the information but thought I'd send it on along to be verified or debunked.
This year will be the first full moon to occur on the winter solstice,
Dec. 22, commonly called the first day of winter. Since a full moon on
the winter solstice occurred in conjunction with a lunar perigee (point
in the moon's orbit that is closest to Earth) The moon will appear about
14% larger than it does at apogee (the point in it's elliptical orbit
that is farthest from the Earth) since the Earth is also several million
miles closer to the sun at this time of the year than in the summer,
sunlight striking the moon is about 7% stronger making it brighter.
Also, this will be the closest perigee of the Moon of the year since the
moon's orbit is constantly deforming. If the weather is clear and there
is a snow cover where you live, it is believed that even car headlights
will be superfluous. On December 21st. 1866 the Lakota Sioux took
advantage of this combination of occurrences and staged a devastating
retaliatory ambush on soldiers in the Wyoming Territory.
In laymen's terms it will be a super bright full moon, much more than the
usual AND it hasn't happened this way for 133 years! Our ancestors 133
years ago saw this. Our descendants 100 or so years from now will see
this again. I hope someone else might find this interesting! Remember
this will happen December 22, 1999.....
Aloha from Hawaii Gail Peiterson
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