Archaeoastronomy, no. 17 (JHA, xxiii (1992) THE LENGTH OF THE LUNAR MONTH BRADLEY E. SCHAEFER, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center 1, Introduction S Many old and modern cultures use lunar calendars. That is, the lunar month is based on the time interval from the moon passing from one phase around complete cycle to return to the same phase. In the Babylonian calendar, the ancient Jewish calendar, and Islamic calendar, the start of the lunar month, was the time that the thin crescent moon was first sighted after new moon, In the modern Jewish calendar, the start of the month is associated with a calculation of the instant of new moon. The Christian date of Easter is based on an idealized calculation of the full moon time. Lunar or lunisolar calendare ware and are also used by Indian, American Indian, Chinese, paleolithic, and neolithic cultures, Many studies of lunar or lunisolar calendars depend on a knowledge of the length of the lunar month. For example, at the recent Third International Conference on Archacoastronomy (Oxford 3) in St Andrews, Scotland, several Speakers presented various assumptions and pleas for more information con, cerning the length of the month. One typical application was an attempt to associate the twenty-eight lunar lodges used widely throughout Asia with the number of days that the moon is visible. Another application used by several speakers was to present tallies of numbers preserved on bones (with dates ranging from the paleolithic to c. 1800 A.D.) and associate the derived numbers with observations of the lunar cycle. Finally, the application to Islasas calendrics was discussed. The traditional answer to questions of the length of the month is that the mean synodic period of the moon is 29.53 days, so that a month composed of a whole number of days will be either 29 or 30 days long. But reality fs not that Simple. First, the actual time from, say, new moon to new moon ean vary from 29.2679 to 29.8376 days.! Second, there are two Possible points of view, with the Seocentric phase being a global phenomenon of theoretical existence and the 0142-7253/92/0017-0032 $250 © 1992 Science History Publications Ltd1992 The Length of the Lunar Month $33 ‘Taste 1. Lunar months for Meridian Mississippi for 1930-31 (cloudiree conditions). ‘Year Old Moon, Duration of Young Moon, Duration NoClouds Dark Period No Clouds of Month, 1930 Jan27 35 Jan 30 30 1930 Feb 26 4s Mar I 30 1930 Mar 27 45 Mar 31 29 1930 Apr 26 33 Apr 29 30 1930 May 26 35 May 29 29 1930 Jun 25 25 Jun 27 29 1930 Jul 24 25 Jul 26 30 1930 Aug 22 35 ‘Aug 25 29 1930 Sep 21 25 Sep 23 30 1930 Oct 20 35 Oct 23 29 1930 Nov 18, 35 Nov 21 30 1930 Dec 18 35 Dee 21 29 1931 Jan 16 35 Jan 19 30 1931 Feb 35 Feb 18 30 1931 Mar 17 35 Mar 20 30 1931 Apr 15 45 Apr 19 29 1931 May 15 35 May 18 30 1931 Jun 14 33 Jun 17 29 1931 Jul 14 25 Jol 16 30 1931 Aug 12 35 ‘Aug 15 29 1931 Sep 10 35 Sep 13 29 1931 Oct 10 28 Oct 12 30 1931 Nov8 33 Nov I 29 1931 Dee? 33 Dec 10 29 1932 Jan6 28 Jan8 Neugebauer’s criterion has the serious fault that the seasonal variations in the extinction coefficients are not taken into account. In this paper, I will quantify the three effects of the length of the lunar month for three different locations for six years. I will present histograms of the length of the lunar month for the conditions of (1) with no clouds, (2) with clouds, and (3) with clouds and a rule that a month can not be longer than 30 days. I will also discuss the length of the time when the moon is not visible, the degree by which months alternate between 29 and 30 days, and the relations between observations at nearby sites. In addition, I will discuss the accuracy by which the full moon and quarter moon phases can be measured. 2. Cloudless Conditions The task of predicting the visibility of the thin lunar crescent is an old one, dating at least back to the Babylonians. Before modern times, the typical prediction algorithm merely stated that the moon would be visible if its distance from the sun (in one or more coordinates) was greater than some threshold distance. The best of these criteria is that of Fotheringham. Alll these algo- rithms have the great drawback that the entire world is implicitly assumed to have the exact same atmospheric conditions as those used to construct the834 Bradley E. Schaefer 1992 ‘Tanve 2. Summary of statistics for cloud free conditions. site: Meridian Green Bay Month is 29 days 49% 49% Month is 30 days 51% 31% Dark period is 2.5 days 365 Dark period is 3.5 days 565 Dark period is 4:5 days 8% Alternating months (Ist order) 68% ‘Alternating months (2nd order) 59% ‘Alternating months (3rd order) 48% criterion. This is a poor approximation, as the crescent visibility from the swamps of Louisiana is greatly more difficult than from the crystal clear skies of the American Southwest. To overcome these and other problems, I have developed a prediction algorithm based on the astronomy, meteorology, and physiology of the detection process.’ The method employed was to model mathematically every physical process that affects the moonlight from its reflection to its detection. The processes modelled include the microscopic and macroscopic shadowing on the moon, the lunar albedo, the relative positions of the sun, moon, and horizon, the variation of the extinction coefficient as a function of the date, latitude, relative humidity, time of year, longitude, and altitude, the variation of the optical pathlength in the atmosphere for each extinction component, the atmospheric refraction, the brightness of the twilight sky, and the detection probability of the human eye for the calculated conditions. The entire algorithm has been published as a computer program. It might be useful to reiterate typical and extreme results from my algorithm. For typical conditions, the age of the moon when first sighted from a location can be as young as 20 hours or as old as several days. This age will depend on the time of year, as during the spring the moon is directly over the sun at sunset so that the distance the moon must travel from conjunction is minimal, while during the autumn the moon is usually far to one side of the sun at sunset so that even though the moon is far from the sun (with a large age) the moon will set quickly after the sun and be invisible. The age of first visibility will also depend on the distance of the moon, since at perigee the moon's angular motion is greater than at apogee so that the moon will achieve a critical separation from the sun at a younger age. The age of first visibility will also depend on the observer's longitude, in that one observer might spot a marginally visible crescent yet observers to the east will first see a moon that is one day older. Danjon’ and Schaefert demonstrate observationally and theoretically that the crescent is invisible to ground-based visual observers when it is within 7° of the sun. However, for real conditions this limit is never achieved. The youngest moon ever (reliably) seen is 15.4 hours by J. Schmidt? with the unaided eye and 13.4 hours by R. Victor for an observation with optical aid." My algorithm has undergone tests against extensive sets of observations. A