Moon Phases

[BobbyO]

Do the illumination values you're using when comparing BF activity take into account whether the moon is above the horizon and visible or not at the the time of the activity or only the moon phase?

MIB

MIB,

We did add code to the SSR to determine whether the moon was visible (above the horizon) during the time of the sighting.

Thank You for your wise observation. I think it has improved it a lot.

If you need moon phase, rise/set, and visibility tables, I can help. I have the Redshift astronomy software and it can generate this for any coordinates and time. I believe a year is the longest for a single table, but can just generate multiple tables. Doesn't take a great deal of time.

I tell you what I'm REAL, REAL interested in calculating right now insanity and that is working out the % of moon visibility through all phases throughout the course of an evenings darkness hours, across the course of a year.

Example :

Jan 1st 2001 Waning Crescent, visible for 61% of the darkness hours.

Jan 2nd 2001 Waning Crescent, visible for 59% of the darkness hours.

Jan 3rd 2001 Waning Crescent, visible for 58% of the darkness hours.

Etc

Etc

Etc

I want to understand what moon phases are visible on x and y date and what % of the darkness hours they're visible for.

Understanding this and applying it to specific numbers I've already analysed from within the SSR and found initial strong correlations from, will go some way in to adding relevant context to them as well as understanding these correlations and possibly then presenting them on a very positive way where our research is concerned.

Doing it manually will take me an eternity so I wonder if there is something you can help with here ?

What we now have the ability to add a time and date and our code spits out whether at that specific time, on that specific date, if the moon is visible or not which is wonderful, but I need to understand more from that specific night, at that specific moon phase and at that specific time of year to really present a legitimate set of numbers that may actually give us an insight via strong numerical correlations into nocturnal reports where moon phases are concerned.

Edited September 4, 2015 by BobbyO

[BobbyO]

Lastly I think the next major step in your guys research is trying to corelate regions. When in winter in Washington do sightings go down, but in California do sightings go up? Are we dealing with an animal that stays within a hundred miles of its birthplace for life? 20 miles? Or are we dealing with a creature that will walk the spine of the cascades on a yearly basis? Maybe both being gender dependent? Or?

You guys are doing great work!

This is the thing though Norse.

Before we get to the fruit, we have to get our hands dirty and in this case, getting our hands dirty means adding data which is time consuming.

WA is as close as close can be to being complete where public reports are concerned and including BFRO, Oregon Bigfoot, Bobbi Shorts, Barackman's, John Green's database and even a couple more which names escape me.

I'm now working on (when I get spare time of which there seems to be less and less recently) OR and BC and have done maybe 100 reports combined for both States, ID has reports in from the Northern part of the State but isn't finished, same goes for MT, and Alaska is finished as far as BFRO reports go if my memory serves me right but there are she'd loads more on other public databases as well as books such as Raincoast Sasquatch for example of which have many have been investigated and meet our requirements for submission.

But this all takes time.

Nothing would make me more happier than to have all of these reports in the SSR, locked and loaded where I could start properly analysing this stuff with the guys at work who will no doubt whatsoever find us correlation after correlation with these numbers that should blow our minds because correlations will be there as this is a real animal and we would have the data to be able to find them.

You know I can't resist sometimes though in just feeding tidbits of info, primarily on WA as it's all but completed, but the rest takes real hard work where time is concerned and it's not easy for us all who do it.

We do have a dedicated team adding data virtually daily however and I ask for patience as we've still got a long while getting our hands dirty before we can get to that fruit.

But everything you talk about in what I have quoted above is what I will be doing until I'm blue in the face, I can assure you, 100%..

Edited September 4, 2015 by BobbyO

[BigTreeWalker]

Is this something like what you are looking for BobbyO? This is just a screenshot, I hope you can read it. The azimuth headings are actually sunrise/moonrise or sunset/moonset times. By this you can tell whether the moon is visible in the evening hours or the early morning hours. The percentage of visibility is also there.

[Guest insanity42]

 

 

 

Do the illumination values you're using when comparing BF activity take into account whether the moon is above the horizon and visible or not at the the time of the activity or only the moon phase?

MIB

MIB,

We did add code to the SSR to determine whether the moon was visible (above the horizon) during the time of the sighting.

Thank You for your wise observation. I think it has improved it a lot.

If you need moon phase, rise/set, and visibility tables, I can help. I have the Redshift astronomy software and it can generate this for any coordinates and time. I believe a year is the longest for a single table, but can just generate multiple tables. Doesn't take a great deal of time.

I tell you what I'm REAL, REAL interested in calculating right now insanity and that is working out the % of moon visibility through all phases throughout the course of an evenings darkness hours, across the course of a year.

Example :

Jan 1st 2001 Waning Crescent, visible for 61% of the darkness hours.

Jan 2nd 2001 Waning Crescent, visible for 59% of the darkness hours.

Jan 3rd 2001 Waning Crescent, visible for 58% of the darkness hours.

Etc

Etc

Etc

I want to understand what moon phases are visible on x and y date and what % of the darkness hours they're visible for.

Understanding this and applying it to specific numbers I've already analysed from within the SSR and found initial strong correlations from, will go some way in to adding relevant context to them as well as understanding these correlations and possibly then presenting them on a very positive way where our research is concerned.

Doing it manually will take me an eternity so I wonder if there is something you can help with here ?

What we now have the ability to add a time and date and our code spits out whether at that specific time, on that specific date, if the moon is visible or not which is wonderful, but I need to understand more from that specific night, at that specific moon phase and at that specific time of year to really present a legitimate set of numbers that may actually give us an insight via strong numerical correlations into nocturnal reports where moon phases are concerned.

 

 

I believe I understand what you are looking for and that it can generate this.  It reports the moon phase in percentage, where 50% would be a half moon, 100% would be a full moon, and 0% would be a new moon.  Waxing and waning are not reported as such, just the percentage, but easy enough to tell if it is waning or not from the table.  It does not report how many hours that the moon would be visible on a given date as a separate field (to my knowledge), but it will give set/rise times for the moon and the sun, from which you could get a fair idea.  All I would need is a set of latitude and longitude plus the date range.

[norseman]

Lastly I think the next major step in your guys research is trying to corelate regions. When in winter in Washington do sightings go down, but in California do sightings go up? Are we dealing with an animal that stays within a hundred miles of its birthplace for life? 20 miles? Or are we dealing with a creature that will walk the spine of the cascades on a yearly basis? Maybe both being gender dependent? Or?

You guys are doing great work!

This is the thing though Norse.

Before we get to the fruit, we have to get our hands dirty and in this case, getting our hands dirty means adding data which is time consuming.

WA is as close as close can be to being complete where public reports are concerned and including BFRO, Oregon Bigfoot, Bobbi Shorts, Barackman's, John Green's database and even a couple more which names escape me.

I'm now working on (when I get spare time of which there seems to be less and less recently) OR and BC and have done maybe 100 reports combined for both States, ID has reports in from the Northern part of the State but isn't finished, same goes for MT, and Alaska is finished as far as BFRO reports go if my memory serves me right but there are she'd loads more on other public databases as well as books such as Raincoast Sasquatch for example of which have many have been investigated and meet our requirements for submission.

But this all takes time.

Nothing would make me more happier than to have all of these reports in the SSR, locked and loaded where I could start properly analysing this stuff with the guys at work who will no doubt whatsoever find us correlation after correlation with these numbers that should blow our minds because correlations will be there as this is a real animal and we would have the data to be able to find them.

You know I can't resist sometimes though in just feeding tidbits of info, primarily on WA as it's all but completed, but the rest takes real hard work where time is concerned and it's not easy for us all who do it.

We do have a dedicated team adding data virtually daily however and I ask for patience as we've still got a long while getting our hands dirty before we can get to that fruit.

But everything you talk about in what I have quoted above is what I will be doing until I'm blue in the face, I can assure you, 100%..

We all owe you guys a debt of gratitude, thats for sure! Thank you!

[hiflier]

Hello BobbyO,

Question for you then. OK, two questions. The first is in regard to eyeshine (tapetum lucidum reflection). I haven't seen it as part of the database variables. Is it there? Question #2 is if there is a field for eyeshine does it correlate to moonphase or % of moonlight during the darkness hours?

You can maybe see where I'm going with this. If there is a connection then down the road the reports that have no specific day date but have a month and year could be zeroed in tighter if the report has eyeshine. For example if someone witnesses eyeshine at 9:00pm some time say in the month of march then looking at the moonphases in march that year a researcher would see a better time/day criteria.

The reason being that it would be impossible for a straight on 3rd Quarter Moon to be in the sky at 9:00pm as it sets before the Sun does. Follow me? Then a better time of the month could be assumed. For that time of evening a 1st Quarter to Full would be the most likely or portions of them anyway.

Edited September 4, 2015 by hiflier

[gigantor]

BobbyO,

 

Given that:

 

hd = # hours of darkness

hmv = # hours moon visible during darkness

 

you want:

 

hmv = (hmv) / hd) * 100

 

right?

 

Question for you then. OK, two questions. The first is in regard to eyeshine (tapetum lucidum reflection). I haven't seen it as part of the database variables. Is it there?

Yes

 

Question #2 is if there is a field for eyeshine does it correlate to moonphase or % of moonlight during the darkness hours?

Somebody has to do that analysis. How about it?

Edited September 4, 2015 by gigantor

[BigTreeWalker]

Knowing when that percentage of moon visibility occurs, evening or morning, could have a bearing on sightings and visible eyeshine.

[hiflier]

Hello gigantor,

Yes indeed there is an eyeshine variable. How could I have missed it? Just out of curiosity though I perused down the page of reports to get a sense of what I was looking at on the surface. At first nothing seemed out of place until it struck me that some of the reports of eyeshine had a Sun symbol (daytime). I don't understand eyeshine in the daytime yet. So working on that.

[gigantor]

Yup, I just searched for eyeshine in WA and there were four daylight sightings with eyeshine.

 

I will say that when one is doing data input, you're not focused on the reasoning, you're just filling out the form from the data in the report. Whether the report makes sense does not factor into the choir. That's why we need analysis after the fact.

 

you could help tremendously by manually looking up the date/time of the reports with a discrepency to make sure there is no bug. i.e. that the sighting actually occurred during daytime. Or maybe it was a data input error. If all is correct, then it has to be the report itself or the witness.

 

Maybe this can serve as a check for hoax or less than factual reports.

Edited September 5, 2015 by gigantor

[hiflier]

Hello gigantor,

Sounds like a good plan. Ok.

[BobbyO]

I believe I understand what you are looking for and that it can generate this.  It reports the moon phase in percentage, where 50% would be a half moon, 100% would be a full moon, and 0% would be a new moon.  Waxing and waning are not reported as such, just the percentage, but easy enough to tell if it is waning or not from the table.  It does not report how many hours that the moon would be visible on a given date as a separate field (to my knowledge), but it will give set/rise times for the moon and the sun, from which you could get a fair idea.  All I would need is a set of latitude and longitude plus the date range.

Is this something like what you are looking for BobbyO? This is just a screenshot, I hope you can read it. The azimuth headings are actually sunrise/moonrise or sunset/moonset times. By this you can tell whether the moon is visible in the evening hours or the early morning hours. The percentage of visibility is also there.

Screenshot_2015-09-04-15-12-17.png

Is that from that app BigTree ?

Actually it isn't what I'm looking for, but thank you.

Having the % of omitted light is something I do use though for sure.

What I'm after is below hopefully explained a little better, so let's take the "1st" as our example from that screen shot.

The moon rises at 03:04 and sets through sunrise.

What I'm looking for is what % of darkness hours was that moon visible IE for example, if the sun set at 22:00 on the 1st and rose at 06:00, the moon was visible from 03:04 (let's just say 03:00 for this examples sake for the ease of calculation) making it visible for 50% of that specific night, from midnight.

I want to be able to access that number easily enough due to the initial numbers I've found that have given strong numerical correlations of reports during specific moon phases, and I want to work out why by hopefully eliminating natural reasons for these correlations like this.

If those correlations show that on these specific nights, the moon is visible for less than 5% of the darkness hours on those nights of moon phase x or y in each and every winter for example, then that would in itself give me answers as to why the correlations are what they are.

If alternatively those correlations show that on these specific nights, the moon is visible for say 85% of the darkness hours on those nights of moon phase x or y in each and every winter for example, but was finding that the reports suggest that they're being made within the 15% of when the moon isn't visible on that night, then we may start to be on to something.

I want to eliminate the natural answers as opposed to anything that the subject is actually doing first and foremost but the numbers I've initially found within certain search parameters are concerned are strong enough for me to at least start delving in to this more as they very much deserve more attention.

Edited September 5, 2015 by BobbyO

[BobbyO]

BobbyO, Given that: hd = # hours of darknesshmv = # hours moon visible during darkness you want: hmv = (hmv) / hd) * 100 right? 

Yes Sir.

I looked at doing it manually about a month or so ago and realised it would take quite a long time to do, too long fir me right now and that's why I'm looking for an easier fix solution and wondered if it could be generated by code somehow.

What I'd want is say a four or five random years pulled and done so that I could then work out averages for moon phase x and y at any given season and how much of the night time hours (darkness) that moon is on average visible in the sky or not as the case may be.

We currently have very strong number correlation across the board for night time reports being in certain moon phases when the moon is visible/non visible and I want to work out by the process of elimination, why those numbers are what they are starting with this.

At this stage I'm not interested in what those actual moon phases are and what light they emit, that's taken care of elsewhere via the date and we can reproduce that already by the touch of a button, what I want is how long on any set night that moon is visible for not by hours, but by % of the night IE (example) On Feb 6th 1986 the waning crescent moon was not visible for 25% of the 16 hours of darkness over that 24 hour period or if it has to be split into the 8 + 8 due to the 24 hour clock, whatever.

If we use the example above and work out that the moon is not visible on average of 25% of the night during a waning crescent in the winter and those averages hold, yet see that 80% plus of the reports on those nights were within the time that the moon was not visible, then we may well be starting to make some headway in to understanding a little more about what we are dealing with here.

And then comes the fun part of working out why..

[BobbyO]

Yup, I just searched for eyeshine in WA and there were four daylight sightings with eyeshine.

 

I will say that when one is doing data input, you're not focused on the reasoning, you're just filling out the form from the data in the report. Whether the report makes sense does not factor into the choir. That's why we need analysis after the fact.

 

you could help tremendously by manually looking up the date/time of the reports with a discrepency to make sure there is no bug. i.e. that the sighting actually occurred during daytime. Or maybe it was a data input error. If all is correct, then it has to be the report itself or the witness.

 

Maybe this can serve as a check for hoax or less than factual reports.

Bear in mind that default is set at 18:00 too G so if no time is given within the report, the default time of sighting is at 18:00.

Of those four WA reports you mention, three don't have an actual time of sighting given so the default kicks in.

The one that does is at 16:00 on an October day with clear blue skies, weird.

I assumed the word "shown" in the investigators follow up report below is actually a misspelling of the word "shone" hence the submission of eye shine.

"From what I observed of the site, the creature could not have been more than 100-150 yards from the family. The witness stated that when he thought, "What the heck is that?" at that instant, the creature turned its head and locked eyes on them. With the sun in the face of the creature, the witness stated that the eyes shown brightly. He said that he had a feeling of intelligence from the look the creature gave him. The river noise was loud enough to cover any noise the family would have made riding up the road. The witness stated that the creature was moving with a relaxed, easy gait, swinging its arms and covering ground very fast. The sighting only lasted about 10 seconds, and then the creature disappeared behind some trees."

[BigTreeWalker]

OK now I understand what you are after. Remember that the waxing moon is visible from 0% to 100% at the full moon in the late evening. The waning moon would be from full moon 100% to 0% in the early morning hours. If we are trying to determine if sightings can be correlated with available moonlight then this also needs to be kept in mind. Example: if the sightings are occurring at 0400 with a waxing moon at 50% then it probably isn't because of available moonlight because the moon would have set before 2200. (This would be for a January moon.)

Yes, that is a screen shot of one of the pages of that app, LunaSolCal mobile. It might not be what you are looking for but I thought I might share it because it is handy in the field. It will also give you historical (1900) and future (2100) sun/moon information. In case you want to know what has or is happening on any certain date and time, at any desired location in the world, say for investigative or other reasons. Here are some of the other pages.