Celestial History

Full Snow Moon over snowy landscape

Full Snow Moon 2015

Winter hits its stride is in February, and with it typically comes heavy snow falls. It’s these snow falls that inspired the most common name for February’s Full Moon, The Full Snow Moon. During this time hunting would become very difficult and food scarce for some Native American tribes, giving this moon another one of its names, the Full Hunger Moon. This year’s Full Snow Moon occurs on February 3rd at 23:09 UTC.

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Happy Halloween from Under the Night Sky

Happy Halloween from Galileo and Under the Night Sky

In keeping with the macabre nature of the day, we present Galileo’s Index Finger. Galileo’s index finger bones. On display at the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy. Photo by Edward Dick, Jr. Now residing in the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy this finger from Galileo’s right hand was removed by historian Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti during a ceremony on March 12, 1737. Galileo’s remains were unearthed and moved to a prominent tomb in the main body of the church of Santa Croce.   A middle finger, a thumb, a tooth and a vertebra were also removed. This finger, along with the thumb

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Full Sturgeon Moon

Full Sturgeon Moon 2014

Full Sturgeon Moon? Sounds like something fishy is going on! That is one of the names given to the August Full Moon, which occurs on August 10th at 18:10 Universal Time (UT). The Algonquin tribes of North America gave this month’s full moon this name because it is during this time that sturgeons, a large fish found in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, are most easily caught. Sturgeons were considered the royalty of fishes by the Native people who lived in the Great Lakes region and a delicacy because of their meaty flesh. The August Full Moon is known

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