珍しく ２９日の月 朝見える

　今日は１２月３日ですが、江戸時代まで(正式には明治５年まで)は旧暦なので今日は１０月２９日でした。このため、明日は旧暦の１１月１日になり、正に新月で月が出ません。

　現代のような紙のカレンダーがなかった時代には月の満ち欠けを見て今日が何日であるかを知ったのでしょう。例えば、満月の十五夜は１５日です。確かに今朝、東に出てた月は本当に細い下弦の月で、明日は月が消えるので１日です。

　ところで月は地球の周囲を約２９．５日で公転するので３６０°÷２９．５で１日で１２．２°東へ行きます。この度数は、私たちが天に手のひらを向けると親指と小指の幅が大人も子供も約１２°なので、月が１日に東へ移動する幅とほとんど同じです。

　明日は月明かりがないので星がよく見えるでしょう。午後１１時にはスバル星団がほぼ頭上に輝きます。なお、スバルはたくさんの星が集まってるので英語でクラスターと言います。

Dear my friend overseas

 Today is December 3rd, but until the Edo period (formally until the 5th year of the Meiji era), it was October 29th because it was used the lunar calendar in Japan. Therefore, tomorrow will be November 1st in the lunar calendar, which is exactly the new moon and the moon will not come out in the sky.

 In ancient era when there was no paper calendar, our ancestors saw the phases of the moon and knew what day it was today. For example, the 15th night of full moon is the 15th. Certainly this morning, the moon in the east is a really thin wining moon, as you see in the photo taken by me, and tomorrow it will be 1st because the moon will disappear.

 By the way, the moon revolves around the earth in about 29.5 days. So 360 ° ÷ 29.5 is equal to 12.2 °, so it goes east in a day. This degree is almost the same as the width of the moon moving in one day. As you know the width of between our thumb and little finger is about 12 ° for both adults and children with the palm facing the heavens.

 There will be no moonlight tomorrow so you can see the stars distinctly. At 11:00 pm, the Pleiades shines almost overhead in Japan. In addition, the Pleiades is called a cluster in English because many stars are gathered together.

※上の英文をネイティブの発音で聴くには英文をドラッグしてコピーし、次に貼り付けて下さい。なお、右上の欄を必ずUS Englishにしてください。https://ttsreader.com/ja/...