Full moon is a lunar phase that occurs when the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. More precisely, a full moon occurs when the geocentric apparent longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180 degrees; the Moon is then in opposition with the Sun.[1] At this time, as seen by viewers on Earth, the hemisphere of the Moon that is facing the earth (the near side) is fully illuminated by the Sun and appears round. Only during a full moon is the opposite hemisphere of the Moon, which is not visible from Earth (the far side), completely unilluminated.

As a lunar month is about 29.531 days long, the full moon falls on either the 14th or 15th of the lunar month in those calendars that start the month on the new moon. In any event, the period between full moons can be either 29 or 30 days.

The Hindu, Thai, Hebrew, Islamic, Tibetan, Mayan, Neo-pagan, Celtic, and the traditional Chinese calendars are all based on the phases of the Moon. None of these calendars, however, begin their months with the full moon. In the Chinese, Jewish, Thai and some Hindu calendars, the full moon always occurs in the middle of a month.

In the Gregorian calendar, the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon which occurs after the ecclesiastical vernal equinox. In this context, the date of the full moon (together with the date of the vernal equinox) is calculated not according to actual astronomical phenomena, but according to a calendrical approximation of these phenomena.

In the Chinese calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the full moon of the eighth month, whereas the Lantern Festival falls on the first full moon of the year.

Although it takes only 27.322 days on average for the Moon to complete one orbit around the Earth (the sidereal month), as a result of the Earth's orbital motion around the Sun it requires about two additional days for the Earth, Moon, and Sun to acquire the same relative geometry. So on average the number of days between two similar phases (e.g., between one full moon and the next full moon) is about 29.531 days. This period is referred to as a lunation, lunar month, or synodic month. The actual number of days in a lunation can vary from about 29.272 to 29.833 because the velocities of the Moon and of the Earth are not constant in their elliptic orbits, and because of gravitational interactions with other bodies in the solar system.

Because the month of February has only 28 days (or 29 in a leap year), there have been a few occasions during which this month has been without a full moon. In particular, there was no full moon in February of 1866, 1885, 1915, 1934, 1961 or 1999.[4] There will be no full moon during February of 2018.[5] In these years, there were instead either two full moons in January, March, or both (as in 1999). In the leap year of 1972, there was a full moon on February 29. The previous February 29 full moon occurred in 1820 and before that in 1752.

A full moon is often thought of as an event of a full night's duration. This is somewhat misleading, as the Moon seen from Earth is continuously becoming larger or smaller (though much too slowly to notice with the naked eye). Its absolute maximum size occurs at the moment expansion has stopped, and when graphed, its tangent slope is zero. For any given location, about half of these absolute maximum full moons will be potentially visible, as the other half occur during the day, when the full moon is below the horizon. Many almanacs list full moons not just by date, but by their exact time as well (usually in GMT). Typical monthly calendars which include phases of the moon may be off by one day if intended for use in a different time zone.

Full moons are generally a poor time to conduct astronomical observations, since the bright reflected sunlight from the moon overwhelms the dimmer light from stars.


The full moon has been linked to crime, suicide, mental illness, disasters, accidents,  birthrates, fertility, and werewolves, among other things. Some people even buy and sell stocks according to phases of the moon, a method probably as successful as many others. Numerous studies have tried to find lunar effects. So far, the studies have failed to establish much of interest. Lunar effects that have been found have little or nothing to do with human behavior, e.g., the discovery of a slight effect of the moon on global temperature,* which in turn might have an effect on the growth of plants. Of course, there have been single studies here and there that have found correlations between various phases of the moon and this or that phenomenon, but nothing significant has been replicated sufficiently to warrant claiming a probable causal relationship.

Ivan Kelly, James Rotton and Roger Culver (1996) examined over 100 studies on lunar effects and concluded that the studies have failed to show a reliable and significant correlation (i.e., one not likely due to chance) between the full moon, or any other phase of the moon, and each of the following:

   -the homicide rate
   -traffic accidents
   -crisis calls to police or fire stations
   -domestic violence
   -births of babies
   -suicide
   -major disasters
   -casino payout rates
   -assassinations
   -kidnappings
   -aggression by professional hockey players
   -violence in prisons
   -psychiatric admissions [one study found admissions were lowest during a full moon]
   -agitated behavior by nursing home residents
   -assaults
   -gunshot wounds
   -stabbings
   -emergency room admissions [but see]
   -behavioral outbursts of psychologically challenged rural adults
   -lycanthropy
   -vampirism
   -alcoholism
   -sleep walking
   -epilepsy

If so many studies have failed to prove a significant correlation between the full moon and anything, why do so many people believe in these lunar myths? Kelly, Rotton, and Culver suspect four factors: media effects, folklore and tradition, misconceptions, and cognitive biases. A fifth factor should be considered, as well: communal reinforcement.

For thousands of years it has been believed that the fortunes of men and women move in cycles. The ancients depicted the concept as the great Wheel of Fortune, eternally turning and spilling off the winners on top while bearing up the wretches beneath and giving them their time in the limelight before they, too, get dumped. The trouble was that no one knew for sure what powered that wheel or exactly what speed it was turning for any given individual. People knew their days were numbered, but they didn’t know the number.

Until recently the situation hasn’t improved much. For hundreds of years we have known that it is the regular and predictable cycles of the moon and sun that regulate the ocean’s tides, but the tides in the affairs of humans have not been so easily forecast. It was almost as if they moved erratically of their own accord, unmotivated by outside forces.

The extensive cycle research of the past thirty years has proved otherwise. It has established numerous links between regularly occurring human behavior and external natural cycles ranging from weather and solar radiation to phases of the moon and planetary cycles. Here are some dramatic examples.

MURDER TIDES
At the University of Miami, psychologist Arnold Lieber and his colleagues decided to test the old belief of full-moon “lunacy” which most scientists had written off as an old wives’ tale. The researchers collected data on homicide in Dade County (Miami) over a period of 15 years — 1,887 murders, to be exact. When they matched the incidence of homicide with the phases of the moon, they found, much to their surprise, that the two rose and fell together, almost infallibly, for the entire 15 years! As the full or the new moon approached, the murder rate rose sharply; it distinctly declined during the first and last quarters of the moon.

To find out whether this was just a statistical fluke, the researchers repeated the experiment using murder data from Cuyahoga County in Ohio (Cleveland). Again, the statistics showed that more murders do indeed occur at the full and new moons.

Dr. Lieber and his colleagues shouldn’t have been so surprised. An earlier report by the American Institute of Medical Climatology to the Philadelphia Police Department entitled “The Effect of the Full Moon on Human Behavior” found similar results. That report showed that the full moon marks a monthly peak in various kinds of psychotically oriented crimes such as murder, arson, dangerous driving, and kleptomania. People do seem to get a little bit crazier about that time of the month.

That’s something most police and hospital workers have known for a long time. Indeed, back in eighteenth-century England, a murderer could plead “lunacy” if the crime was committed during the full moon and get a lighter sentence as a result. Scientists, however, like to have a hard physical model to explain their discoveries, and so far there isn’t a fully accepted one. Dr. Lieber speculates that perhaps the human body, which, like the surface of the earth, is composed of almost 80 percent water, experiences some kind of “biological tides” that affect the emotions. When a person is already on psychologically shaky ground, such a biological tide can push him or her over the edge.

BLOODY MOON
Crimes and violence aren’t the only things affected by the 29½ day full moon cycle. In the Journal of the Florida Medical Association, Dr. Edson J. Andrews writes that in a study of 1,000 tonsillectomies, 82 percent of postoperative bleeding crises occurred nearer the full than the new moon — despite the fact that fewer operations were performed at that time! Clearly, the full moon is a dangerous time for surgery, and the dissemination of this knowledge should result in planning operations for the new moon.

MOON DOLLARS
Practical economic use of the lunar cycle has been going on for a long time. In tropical rain forest countries in South America and Southeast Asia, where most of the world’s hardwood comes from, tree-harvesting contracts are linked to the phase of the moon. The trees are only cut down on a waning moon, as near to the new moon as feasible. This is because on a waxing or full moon, the sap rises in the trees and extensive sap bleeding attracts hordes of deathwatch beetles, which will devastate a crop. Awareness of this cycle means the difference between making or losing millions of dollars every year.

LUNAR BABIES
One future use for the monthly lunar cycle may be in choosing the timing and gender of babies. Curtis Jackson, controller of Southern California Methodist Hospital, reports that more babies are conceived on the waxing moon than on the waning. He quantified 11,025 births over a period of six years and found that nearly 1,000 more children were conceived during the waxing moon. Apparently, successful conception is easier at that time. More interesting are the results of German researcher W. Buehler. In an analysis of 33,000 births Dr. Buehler found that there was a significant preponderance of male births during the waxing moon. This knowledge, combined with medical techniques known to affect fertility and sex, may well help people in planning for their children.

HARNESSING THE SOLAR WIND
The moon isn’t the only body out in space that produces human cycles. The sun, the basic source of all life on earth, has its own rhythm, which produces cycles in humans and non-humans alike. Since the 1800s astronomers have noted that there is an eleven and a twenty-two-year sunspot cycle; that is, for some years there would be hardly any sunspots, and then for some years the sun’s face would be as blotchy as a teenager with acne. It wasn’t until the 1930s, however, that it occurred to anyone that something going on that far away from earth could affect us. During the sunspot peak of the 1930s, Dr. Miki Takata found that human blood serum was affected by the solar radiation put out by sunspots. During the same period it was discovered that sunspot emissions affected a wide variety of other things, such as the size of tree rings and the amount of radio interference on certain bandwidths.

During World War II, the potential communications blackout that sunspots and solar storms might cause was of great concern to the armed forces, so a radio engineer at RCA named John Nelson was asked to come up with a method of predicting when the storms would occur. Nelson figured that the only major variables that might conceivably affect the sun’s turbulent surface were the planets surrounding it. He devised a system of charting their relationships to the sun and to one another and found that when certain angular relationships between planets occurred, sunspots and solar magnetic storms broke out. To date, his system of prediction has been 95 percent accurate, and the hypothesis that the planets cause solar “tides” was proved by Professor K. D. Wood at the University of Colorado.

More recently, many scientists have been suggesting that the sunspot cycle is critical in the formation of our weather patterns. Indeed, during a seventy-year period in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the cycle was interrupted and sunspots stopped for no apparent reason, Europe was plunged into its coldest period on record, nicknamed the “Little Ice Age”. Astronomer John R. Gribbin and astrophysicist Stephen H. Plagemann even speculated that sunspot and planetary cycles are linked to earthquakes, and a future unusual planetary alignment may trigger a devastating California quake. The more the subject is investigated, the more important these cycles appear.

MASS HYSTERIA
The amount of solar radiation we receive, which is determined by the sunspot cycle, may have profound historical significance. Soviet professor A. C. Tchyivsky has correlated the eleven-year cycle with what he calls a worldwide “mass excitement cycle”. He found that throughout history events such as wars, migrations, crusades, uprisings, and revolutions have clustered around peak sunspot periods. In the three years surrounding these peaks 60 percent of such events occurred, while only 5 percent occurred in the troughs. It would appear that tides govern the affairs of nations as well as individuals.

GOVERNMENT COVER-UP
But can planetary cycles directly affect individual human events? If the answer is yes, then cycle research begins to look pretty much like astrology, a subject most scientists aren’t too fond of.

An Atomic Energy Commission-funded project at Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, came up with a report entitled “Intriguing Accident Patterns Plotted against a Background of Natural Environmental Features”, which correlated on-the-job accidents of government employees over a period of 20 years with various natural cycles. This preliminary report (the researchers suggested further study was in order) found that accidents peak with the sunspot cycle and — even more intriguing and “astrological” — that people were more likely to have accidents during the phase of the moon the same as or opposite to that under which they were born.

Some really hard and startling evidence might have come out of this research had it been allowed to continue. But alas, that was not to be. Shortly after its completion, the report fell into the hands of Time magazine, which did a spoof on it in its January 10, 1972, issue, under the heading “Moonstruck Scientists”, complete with an old woodcut of maidens dancing in a frenzy under the rays of the full moon.

That was all the Congress needed to kill the project and suppress the report. When I wrote to the Atomic Energy Commission and Sandia in 1972, I was told that the report was not for distribution and that I, or any other taxpayer, could not see it. The report remained classified until 1977, when I again requested a copy, this time under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. At first, I was told that all extant copies had been lost, hut through the efforts of a persistent Energy Research Administration officer, Sandia was finally pressured into coughing up a copy — accompanied by a somewhat terrified disclaimer telling me I really shouldn’t believe what was in it.

J. E. Davidson, who wrote the report with a team of fellow scientists, told me over the phone that he was sad the research had been canceled. The team felt they were on to something and, except for a nosy journalist and premature publicity, might have made a significant contribution to cycle research. Instead, their work was thrown down the drain. But that’s the breaks when Congress is your boss.

STATISTICS DON’T LIE; ONLY STATISTICIANS DO
Probably the most distinguished work connecting planetary cycles with events and trends in the lives of individuals has been that of French psychologist and statistician Michel Gauquelin. In the mid-1960s he set out to disprove astrology statistically by analyzing planetary positions at the births of professionals, using samples as large as 10,000, 15,000, and 20,000. Astrologers have always believed that certain planets coming up over the horizon, or directly overhead at a person’s birth, guide that individual toward a certain profession.

To Gauquelin, the task he had set for himself seemed like a piece of cake. All he had to do was prove that the planet associated with athletic achievement, Mars, fell at random points in the nativities of 10,000 or 15,000 athletes, and that would be that — astrology would be debunked. To emphasize his point he also investigated groups of doctors, lawyers, writers, and others in jobs associated by astrologers with specific planets.

To Gauquelin’s surprise, the results turned out to be exactly the opposite of what he had expected. Mars did appear to be rising or culminating in a vast number of athletes’ birth charts. Similarly, Jupiter appeared for bankers, Saturn for doctors, Mercury for writers, and so on. Gauquelin was astounded. Had he accidentally proved the case for astrology when he had meant to debunk it?

Actually, he had done a lot more than that because his data not only confirmed traditional astrological assignments, they uncovered new ones. For writers, for instance, the traditionally associated planet is Mercury. Gauquelin found that Mercury was indeed significant in writers’ natal charts, but he also found that the moon was equally important, something astrologers had never posited.

Gauquelin's work established the fact that planetary positions do affect human disposition, talent, and direction and that these effects can be specifically determined by scientific methods such as statistical analysis and probability.

Full Moon Names and Their Meanings
Full Moon names date back to Native Americans, of what is now the northern and eastern United States. The tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full Moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. There was some variation in the Moon names, but in general, the same ones were current throughout the Algonquin tribes from New England to Lake Superior. European settlers followed that custom and created some of their own names. Since the lunar month is only 29 days long on the average, the full Moon dates shift from year to year. Here is the Farmers Almanac's list of the full Moon names.

• Full Wolf Moon - January Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January's full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.

• Full Snow Moon - February Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, native tribes of the north and east most often called February's full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Some tribes also referred to this Moon as the Full Hunger Moon, since harsh weather conditions in their areas made hunting very difficult.

• Full Worm - March Moon As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

• Full Pink Moon - April This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month's celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

• Full Flower Moon - May In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.

• Full Strawberry Moon - June This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

• The Full Buck Moon - July July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month's Moon was the Full Hay Moon.

• Full Sturgeon Moon - August The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.

• Full Harvest Moon - September This is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.

• Full Hunter's Moon - October With the leaves falling and the deer fattened, it is time to hunt. Since the fields have been reaped, hunters can easily see fox and the animals which have come out to glean.

• Full Beaver Moon - November This was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers are now actively preparing for winter. It is sometimes also referred to as the Frosty Moon.

• The Full Cold Moon; or the Full Long Nights Moon - December During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.

Full Moon Folklore
UK Folklore for the 10 Days after a Full Moon

Day 1
Said to be the best day after the full moon to consider starting a fresh enterprise or even better to actually get it up and running.

Be prepared for a lengthy illness if you happen to fall prey to sickness on this day though. Happily this does not apply to the new born, as any child born on this day it is said will enjoy a long healthy life, and prosper in the process.

Day 2
Whether you run a company, operate a cottage industry or plan to have a garage sale traditionally the second day after the full moon is a very positive day to sell your wares. By the same token it is a good day to buy, probably being able to find items at reasonable prices.

Good fortune will come to those interested in gardening as it is said that any plant sown or bedded in on this day will flourish. Likewise those involved in agriculture will have an easy time of ploughing the land.

Day 3
Those who find their property fell prey to the felon's eye on this day can at least gain some small comfort that the thief is also likely to be caught within a short amount of time if not the very same day.

It was traditionally believed that any child born on this day would be prone to illness, and therefore was believed to have a short life expectancy.

Day 4
Well, this is definitely the day to start building that extension or barbie, or going for a fresh look in decoration in the home, which of course includes repairs. This is said to be a positive day to commence any new project that involves construction design to your property. If you're planning this try to get out on the second day after the full moon to pick up those last minute bargains from the sales;).

Keep an eye on the education and social life of any child born on this day as their intended aim be to develop a career will most likely move towards politics. The career will be prosperous and auspicious but only if those early days are firmly supported.

Day 5
If you are trying for a child, then according to folklore this is said to be an ideal time to conceive...and of course if you are not...be careful :).

Regarding weather omens it is said that whatever happens on this day, be it rain or shine, then the rest of the month is likely to follow suit.

Day 6
This is reputed to be a very good day to book a holiday, and take a rest. If you can get away on this day even better as you are likely to have a wonderful time. For those interested in fishing or hunting it is said that this is a day when you might catch the big one!

Day 7
Little is said about this day except that if you are unattached and looking for a partner then today, the seventh after the full moon, will provide many opportunities to find the perfect lover. Falling in love is the order of the day, so enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

Day 8
This day is connected to the first after the full moon, as it was traditionally believed that anyone falling ill would be unlikely to recover, and those fortunate to survive the illness would remain weak for some considerable time.

Day 9
Close the curtains when you go to bed and avoid looking out of a window at the new moon on this day if you want to retain your beautiful looks. The moon light was believed to have the power to change facial features and even thought at one time to cause temporary madness.

Day 10
Be patient with the child that is born on this day as it is said that the spirit of the child is likely to be uneasy, resulting in a restless 'free spirited' or hyperactive child.