Constellations and the Night Sky

[Myranda]

Is it just me, or has the Moon moved the same amount as the stars? This would suggest that Hydaelyn's Moon is in a very interesting type of orbit.

I haven't looked into the movement of the Moon in detail, but there are a couple things I can say here for now.

1. I would guess just based on ease of programming that the moon doesn't move continually it would move in large discrete steps, say at Eorzean midnight each day or with each change of phase. So it probably isn't moving at a different rate than the stars here, as you pointed out. And that's assuming the devs didn't get super lazy and that it moves at all (I would be so bothered if it doesn't)... This is part of where I really want to do more research with the moon.

2. Even if they did add an accurate model for lunar motion, that photo incorporates such a short time span that all celestial motion is still dominated by Hydaelyn's rotation. Stars, and everything else in the sky sufficiently far away from the planet including the Sun for that matter, appear to rotate 15° per hour (1 full rotation per day), and lunar motion would only be about 11° per whole day (only half a degree per hour) superimposed on top of the overall celestial motion (since after all Hydaelyn is rotating underneath the moon as well).

So I wouldn't conclude anything about the moon just yet, certainly not from my photo. Now Dalamud on the other hand... that had some messed up physics to stay geostationary through it's entire decent. But MAGIC!

[Zepheros]

As a physicist, I just want to say, I love this thread. Thank you all!

[Anonymoose]

From Borningridania's Tumblr

[radhaz]

Good work, you lore mongers. I love it!

[murf]

From what I saw in Phase 2 (need to confirm for Phase 3), I noticed that the moon always seems to be full. Thus indicating that they've done away with moon phases.

While this frees me from the "Moon Phases are wrong" discussion, how could you possibly have a moon that is constantly full? Can it be locked into Lagrangian point 2 in order to be able to stay full lit like that?

[Myranda]

From what I saw in Phase 2 (need to confirm for Phase 3), I noticed that the moon always seems to be full. Thus indicating that they've done away with moon phases.

While this frees me from the "Moon Phases are wrong" discussion, how could you possibly have a moon that is constantly full? Can it be locked into Lagrangian point 2 in order to be able to stay full lit like that?

While I'd have to look it up to confirm, it may just not have been implemented yet in phase 2. I know they didn't have weather fully operational then, so maybe moon phases weren't yet either. I just can't imagine they'd get rid of phases entirely...

I'd have to agree that a moon at L2 would be the only way to have it constantly full, but that has its problems. L2 is an unstable equilibrium, so having it stay there over long periods of time would be an issue, especially with an object large enough where tidal forces will be nudging it away from that perfect balance. It would also technically be required to share a direct line for all 3 bodies in all 3 spatial dimensions: the moon wouldn't just be forever full, it would be forever eclipsed (depending on how far away it is).