"It was a dark evening with only the feeble light of a waning crescent moon." How much basic astronomy is widely understood by those not specifically interested in the subject?

In My Humble Opinion
141

I didn’t get glasses for my nearsightedness until my freshman year in college when I realized in the large lecture hall that I couldn’t read the chalkboard. I left the library late one night shortly after I got my glasses, and I was shocked at how sharply defined the moon was. It was literally shocking.

142

Note that 12 May is the Full Moon in 2025 so this demonstrates that the Full Moon does not always rise exactly at sunset. This is a consequence of the fact that the Moon’s orbit is tilted, and this is an example of extreme tilt placing the Moon’s path a significant distance below the orbit of the Earth.

Because the Moon is so low it won’t pop up above the horizon until later, and will set earlier.

143

In Lord of the Flies, Golding makes the error of a crescent moon rising at sunset.

T. S. Eliot wrote in an essay that he had no idea what a stanza in Shelley’s To a Skylark is describing. It’s just the Moon fading as morning twilight brightens.

These and other mistakes are given in “Literary Science Blunders” by Martin Gardner, collected with other articles by him in Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic. I just now found the entire book for free on a reliable website, but it’s probably still in copyright, so I won’t link to it.

144

No one’s mentioned Livin’ on Dreams by Little Feat. It has the the lyrics

There’s a full moon risin’ just about midnight.
A high tide comin’ 'round just about dawn.

Can’t tell if the tide part is wrong because the full moon bit definitely is.

145

Back in 1987 (no GPS back then) I actually saved myself a long night when I got lost leaving downtown New Haven after a concert, and found myself on a dark unfamiliar highway. After a bit I pulled over and found a clearing to see the sky. With my knowledge of the moon/night sky I realized I was actually heading north towards Massachusetts, rather than west and back towards the bridges to NYC, It was then easy to rectify my course,

I see that ability as a more valuable skill than being able to tell a 1964 Corvette from a 1966 Corvette (unless I worked in an auto body shop).

There are too many car makes and models for the average person to amass that knowledge. It is unreasonable to grouse about a movie where they slip up by a year and use the “wrong” car. But things in nature are much more limited in scope and shouldn’t be hard to notice unless a person is willfully ignoring what they see. Hell even the ancients noticed the planets were different from fixed stars.

146

I can tell no one is checking my work :slight_smile: I must have accidentally used east longitude for Berwick whereas it is west of Greenwich, thus incurring a sign error. 4 degrees is 16 minutes, so you should add that to the previously posted times (sunset at 20:08, moonrise at 20:41 (or is it 20:42?), etc.) If you check the daily pages in the almanac the rising/setting times are in local mean time at the prime meridian (which you adjust/interpolate for your latitude and longitude and finally convert from local time to universal time and/or a local zone time).

147

Still, there are many more people interested in cars, even specific date ranges for particular models, than are interested in astronomy, so that doesn’t seem too surprising.

148

The ancients didn’t have to deal with light pollution, and attractions/cultural habits that keep people indoors.

149

I consider myself of average public education and moderately well read. I have vague notions about astronomy. I know a bit about how the moon works but I would have had no idea about what time of day the moon would appear in the sky and what part of the sky it would appear in. It’s pretty much always a surprise to me when I see the moon. “Oh there’s the moon. Huh. Wasn’t looking for it there.”

150

I think some people here watching a movie set in the American southwest wouldn’t flinch if a kangaroo hopped by in the background.

151

Probably just a jackelope after molting its antlers…

152

I feel like I’m decently knowledgeable about astronomy. I know the full moon is opposite the sun. I know the other phases are closer to the sun along the ecliptic, with thin crescents being very close. I know the lit side of the moon faces the sun. Etc.

I know waxing means it’s getting bigger and waning means it’s getting smaller, but where in the sky each version is to be found is not something I bother to keep track of.

I’ll note that in a literary context, “waning” is a word actually used outside lunar references. “Waxing” and “gibbous” are hardly evocative and would require expository explanation.

Since I’m on the topic…
I was fooled last night. Our son’s backyard playhouse was lit up in the night. I went diehards to find which light had been left on before realizing it was the full moon. In my defense, a sky that clear on a Washington November night is rare.

153

Shrek. Not Toy Story.

154

I don’t remember seeing one of these in Shrek:

~Max

155

Sorry, I thought you must have been referring to this:

156

That would be waxing crescent. Close though!

~Max

157

Knowing what waning means in other contexts is the only reason I remember what waxing means.

158

Secretary: “The dean is outside—and he’s waxing wroth!”

Groucho: “Send him in, and have Roth wax himself for awhile.”

159

Miyagi: Wax on. Wax off.

160

All I know about astronomy is, if you ask me to look at Uranus, I’m going to snicker.