Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Monday, April 18th.  The sun rises at 6:53.  It’ll be up for 13 hours and 37 minutes, setting at 8:30.   The moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 9:49 this evening.

Last night our time the moon was full.  It was the Paschal full moon,  the first full moon of spring, or officially after March 21st.  Western Christian churches celebrate Easter at the Sunday following.  That would be the 24th, just one day short of the latest possible date of Easter.  Eastern churches use a slightly different calendar and a different calculation method, but this year they celebrate Easter the same date.  The calculation methods were chosen to make Easter roughly coincide with Jewish Passover.  Christian churches use a calendar based on the earth’s orbit of the sun, or actually the seasons, while the Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycle.  That’s also pretty close this year because Passover begins tonight at sundown.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.