If ever there was a time to climb the silver ladder to the Palace of the Queen of the Moon, then it's this week when the Moon comes to Full Phase on Thursday morning, August 18 at 5:30 AM.
On Thursday the Moon will exhibit what's called an "opposition surge" that will cause its surface brightness to increase up to 40% over other times. How does this happen?
An "opposition surge" occurs when an observer, let's say a human being on the Earth, is in almost the same line as the illuminating source~ in this case, our Sun~ and the object being illuminated, which is our Moon. If Sun and Moon and Earth were in a direct line instead of an almost direct line we would have an eclipse. But because the alignment is as close as it can be without resulting in an eclipse, we get this spectacular brightening effect instead.
This puts me in mind of a really lovely tale by Isabel Wyatt called "The Crippled Wood-Maiden." In the tale, the maiden is crippled because she fell out of a tree and hurt herself, so much so that she can no longer run and dance with the other wood maidens. But one night she receives a knock at her door, and a little old woman enters to tell her that because of her goodness, she can go to the land of the singing sky where there is a fountain of dew, one sip of which will make her well again.
Further, the little old woman shares that the way to the land of the singing sky is to climb to the top of the silver ladder that hangs from the Full Moon, and there, in the Palace of the Queen of the Moon, she will find the stars growing in the fields there as thick as the flowers in the fields below, and that every star is singing.
Watch the Moon overnight Wednesday to Thursday this week, and see if you can find the silver ladder to the land of the singing sky that is in the Palace of the Queen of the Moon, especially at the moment of the "opposition surge" at 5:28 AM,Thursday. This will be an hour before the Moon sets in the west, as the Sun is just peeking up over the eastern edge of the world, when the Moon will burst forth with a brilliance nearly twice as strong as at other times!
Follow this link for Isabel Wyatt's "Seven-Year-Old Wonder Book" with the tale of the crippled wood-maiden:http://bit.ly/2aUsfga