Quoted From: STAR GAZER, Episode #99-50, 1149th Show, To Be Aired : Monday 12/13/99 through Sunday 12/19/99

"The Astonishing Lunar Illumination of December 22nd, 1999! The Brightest First Night of Winter in 133 Years!"

Horkheimer: Greetings. Next Wednesday will be the brightest first night of winter in 133 years because three things will happen together which have not happened together since 1866. You see next Wednesday the full moon will happen on the winter solstice and will be at its closest for the entire year, only 222 thousand miles away, making it appear 14% larger and so bright that electric lights will seem superfluous and at midnight when it's almost overhead its eerie bedazzling light will make any landscape magical, but especially if there's snow. So get thee outside Wednesday night ... bask in a rare illumination. And dance in the moonlight. I'm Jack Horkheimer, Keep Looking Up!

Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers and as the Old Farmer's Almanac puts it, next week we will experience the "Astonishing Lunar Illumination" of December 22, 1999. Indeed next Wednesday will be the brightest first night of winter in 133 years because three things are all going to happen next Wednesday that will make this final full moon of the millennium a night to remember... three things which have not occurred together since 1866, the year after the Civil War ended.

Now the first event next Wednesday is the Winter Solstice, the first day of Winter, which occurs precisely at 2:44 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. The second is a full moon occurring on the Winter Solstice, an event which happens only once every 19 years. And number three, Wednesday night the moon will be closer to earth than at any time during the entire year, only 222 thousand miles away which is 31 thousand miles closer than when it was at its farthest, which means that this full moon will appear 14% larger. Indeed not since 1866 have we had a full moon on the winter solstice when the moon was at its closest for the entire year. Plus, because December's full moon rides higher across the sky than any other, it will shed its light over a much greater area and because our earth is several million miles closer to the sun at the winter solstice than in summer, the sunlight which strikes the moon will be 7% stronger.

As the Almanac says, if next Wednesday night is calm and cloudless with the full moon beaming down on a blanket of snow it will be irresistibly attractive, and electrical illumination, even your car's headlights may seem superfluous. Wow! Indeed, next Wednesday night we will be bedazzled by moonlight. Now if you want to see this moon's effect on the landscape around you at its best, I urge you to go outside at midnight when it reaches its highest overhead because then the lighting effect on the landscape will be truly magical. In fact, it wouldn't be a bad night to have a midnight moon party. And if you want to have some real fun go out once an hour after moonrise and as the moon slowly climbs up the eastern sky see how your shadow, cast by this brilliant lunar light grows shorter and shorter until at midnight it almost disappears. Oh how I envy anyone lucky enough to have a blanket of snow covering the ground that night.

And you know although we at this very end of the 20th century do not live our lives in tune with the phases of the moon and changing of the seasons as much as our ancestors did, it is sometimes really good for us to see and experience the earth and the cosmos the way thousands of generations have before us. So get thee outside Wednesday night for a confluence of events that has not happened for 133 years. Bask in a rare illumination and dance in the moonlight. Feel the wonder of the cosmos. and Keep Looking Up!