The Eorzean Astronomical Society

[murf]

Welcome back friends of the Eorzean night sky.

Within these hallowed halls we seek to uncover the mysteries of the skies above. Whether it be the latitudinal position of Eorzea, or trying to figure out the celestial motions of the moon, or the organization of the stars.

We seek the answers only crazy people would attempt to unravel from a game where implementing physically accurate celestial mechanics would be unlikely to occur. Wild theories and conjecture abounds as we try to tackle Eorzea in the most ludicrous way possible: WITH SCIENCE!

[murf]

For our opening discussion, we focus once again upon the moon (named after Menphina). In earlier iterations of beta, the moon was known to be always full, an anomaly to be sure.

However, one errant screenshot that I took appear to breach the topic of lunar phases.



Judging by its appearance, the moon (while looking nearly full) appears to be that of a waxing gibbous moon, assuming the moon here orbits similar to that of Earth's. And it appears at roughly appropriate time of the late night. Have they fixed 1.0's improperly placed moon on the night sky?

Astronomers, your task is at hand! Lets see if the moons celestial motions make sense again!

Also, additional discussion of other night-sky phenomenon is welcome!

[Myranda]

Oh I forgot to check for moon phases during beta, I'll have to get on that in launch unless you beat me to it.

I will, however, remind everyone that I did measure Eorzea's latitude as roughly 30°N, which does not vary from region to region and so should be taken as an average over all of Eorzea.

Haven't run across any NPCs yet talking about constellations

[Vydos]

Which reminds me. There's now a large group of astronomers located in one of the camps at Coerthas. They study the stars to help them to foresee future events/disasters.

[ArkhamNative]

I was very happy to see the moon phases return for beta phase 4! (It had been a constant full moon in earlier phases that we can talk about.) All the orbital clockwork still seems to be as it was in version 1, including the same moonrise/moonset times every day. (Yes, I'm OK with that. )

Here's two screen shots of an early waxing crescent, the first looking high in the southern sky just after midnight, then another looking east (moonrise) right after sunset that day about 19 hours later. Kind of confusing, but both were taken on the 3rd Sun of the 4th Umbral Moon.

Which reminds me. There's now a large group of astronomers located in one of the camps at Coerthas. They study the stars to help them to foresee future events/disasters.

I guess that's not surprising, given the recent past... Still, I'll have to go visit them very soon.

[Myranda]

I was very happy to see the moon phases return for beta phase 4! (It had been a constant full moon in earlier phases that we can talk about.) All the orbital clockwork still seems to be as it was in version 1, including the same moonrise/moonset times every day. (Yes, I'm OK with that. )

Here's two screen shots of an early waxing crescent, the first looking high in the southern sky just after midnight, then another looking east (moonrise) right after sunset that day about 19 hours later. Kind of confusing, but both were taken on the 3rd Sun of the 4th Umbral Moon.

If this is true--and it sure seems to be given your screenshots--then that's quite disquieting (and unlike you my sensibilities simply cannot be okay with it). Having the illumination change (i.e. phases) without altering its positioning relative to the light source (the sun) is simply a physical impossibility, and isn't even intuitive.

It can't be that much extra effort to program a very simple movement of the moon's texture once or twice each Eorzean day. But in a broader sense, even if it doesn't effect gameplay, I feel having the moon's rise and set times be unchanging is a disservice to what should be a common sense understanding by the general populace of basic celestial motion as well as aesthetics to boot. While a full moon can indeed be beautiful, it is also wonderful to behold a quarter moon hanging faintly in the yet-bright mid-afternoon skies. There are fantastic screenshot opportunities here, people, if only we had some lunar motion!! It pains me every time I hear someone say they thought the moon was only visible at night, which is simply not true. The choice by the devs to have Hydælyn's moon only up at night is simply another poor example that only reinforces this all-too-common misconception.

[Ichi]

Ok so the moon! I dont think an always full moon is impossible. An anomaly? I suppose that fits. All it means is that the moons position relative to the sun and Eorzea rotation was just so that regardless of its rotation or revolution the moon shone always full over Eorzea. This implies that the moon did not revolve around the center of Eorzea... it must have been off center and perpendicular to the suns rays and the planet. Another possibility is that it did not revolve at all, however, this would require physics earthlings are not accustomed to.

Now why is it changing now... WELL Dalamud was pretty big and for all we know Aether may have some effect on gravity. It's possible that the falling of Dalamud (the false moon) derailed the Menphina's moon enough to give us similar phases as we see here on Earth.

[ArkhamNative]

It would be nice (okay, I would "squee" a little) if Team ARR would give us more "natural" moonrise times, as suggested by Myranda. I just don't expect it, only because it's a minor detail in the scope of the game, and ARR is already not very much like our natural world (magic, endless respawning, gear auto-resize for Lalafells and Roegadyn).

There are other, highly contrived, explanations for the moon's behavior, but like Dalamud being a vessel rather than a moon, these also take us out of the realm of natural astronomy.

[Myranda]

Ok so the moon! I dont think an always full moon is impossible.

I think you'll find a full discussion on the ways it would be possible in the old thread. None of which make much of any sense without invoking magic/aether.

The phases and rise/set times are a minor detail yes, but like I said, it should be such a minimal effort to add them, so why not?

[Catapult]

The Geological Society of Hydaelyn shall be forming at a later date, after some surveying has been conducted.