A couple of nights ago, I awoke at random (yep, digestion, that happens at my age) and was pretty sure the sun was rising, there was so much light outside. But when I looked at the clock it was about 4 AM. I was surprised and looked around the room, figuring we had forgotten to turn off some lights. No, it was just coming from the windows. The surface of the bed was lit up in bluish white, as it would be with a full moon, but this was much brighter than usual. I didn’t bother to move over to check the position of the moon, I just went back to sleep and forgot about it.
But this morning I happened upon this thread on StackExchange about somebody else noticing the same thing on the same night, in the Toronto area (hundreds of km away from here).
This was Sunday night / Monday morning. It turns out the full moon was, indeed, Sunday March 28th. But I’ve been living here 20 years, I’ve seen plenty of full moons. My house is in a wooded area, about 12 kilometers from the nearest small city. We certainly get some light pollution in this area, but we manage to see stars on clear nights. There are no streetlights and the neighbours have no lights that could light up the surface of the bed, just the usual door lights and driveway lampposts.
Supermoons aren’t a yes-or-no thing. If the full moon will be at its closest next month, then it’ll be at pretty close to its closest this month and two months from now.
Plus, of course, you weren’t measuring the light levels with a calibrated instrument, just your eye. Eyes, like everything biological, are very complicated. Maybe your eyes were a little more sensitive to brightness that night, for some reason.
I suppose the name “slightly larger than normal moon, the difference in which you can only tell by comparing two photos and if you think differently it is probably the power of suggestion” just doesn’t “pop” for news article headlines.
I checked my general system logs, and they’re inconclusive. The photoreceptors had logging disabled for that period, unfortunately. There’s an entry for “awakened” at that time, then a warning for “slight heartburn”. I checked a bit further back, and there’s an entry a few hours earlier for “wine + mustard sauce on veal cutlets”.
A full moon on a clear night definitely makes things look bright, super moon or otherwise. Add to that the fact that, since you just woke up, your eyes were as adjusted to the dark as they’re ever going to be, and it would look very bright.
A lot of time can pass between the opportunities to see a full moon on a clear night, at a time you are awake, and a time you’ll be outside or at least look outside. The moon is only full part of the month, often visible before of after the complete darkness of night, or just when you are asleep. There are plenty of rainy and overcast nights, not to mention the ones where it’s way too cold to be outside. So months may go by, even years, before you notice the effect of a full moon on a dark night.
And then throw that light atop of day old snow. My dad and grandfather told of rabbit hunting at midnight during the depression/WWII era without a flashlight. They would spook them and the critters would hop a short distance before sitting erect. You could see them but if you were still they’d not pick you out. Meat for dinner.
2 nights ago - that woulda been Sun eve, when the moon was rising my wife and I commented on how bright it was. We kinda pay attention to such things, as we dislike unnecessary light pollution, and discuss historical things such as full moon societies. I remember commenting that I could have read by it, and my wife commented on the moon shadow.
Last night (24 hours past the full moon apparently) at about 1AM I headed to bed, and noticed a lot of moonish light coming in the window. Thanks to a recent cold front, it was clear out.
At first I thought maybe we left the outdoor floodlight on but it wasn’t quite that bright. But certainly bright enough to be the (near) full moon, which this thread has confirmed it is. To me it seemed no brighter than other full moon nights, but still it’s a lot of light compared to a cloudy or new-moon night.
I woke up in the middle of the night during the full moon last month and I noted how much light was coming through the mostly closed Venetian blinds. I too thought I’d left an outside light on until I checked.
