In his novel, A Walk to Remember, author Nicholas Sparks describes a romantic evening on the Bogue Banks of North Carolina, where you can see the sun set over the Atlantic--and the moon rise over the Atlantic, at the same time, if the moon is full. He has this event occur three days after Valentine's day.

Normally, I'd not nitpick like this, but his level of detail impressed me, and he'd mentioned earlier in the novel a waxing crescent moon on Christmas Day. I thought, maybe this was an example of Good Astronomy, but a quick check revealed, no, you can't have a waxing crescent moon on Christmas Day and a full moon three days after Valentine's.

Even more amazing, he actually sets the novel in 1958/1959--which makes it even easier to check. The full moon occurred around Christmas, and was waxing gibbous by Valentine's Day.

Hi Grapes, I'm not familiar with Bogue Banks so this may be a needless nitpick. (Or it could be that Bogue Banks is an island out of the sight of shore)

I do not believe that someone in South Carolina can see the sun set over the Atlantic. Rise, I'll buy. Not set.

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Valiant Dancer

I don't know about Bogue Banks (which is in NC, by the way, not SC), but this reminds me of an experience I had a year or so ago while coming home from vacation.

As we were sitting in the plane on the runway, the sun set. We then proceeded to take off, and as we gained altitude I watched out my window as the sun became visible again over the horizon.

Nitpick the definitions all you want, but I will always claim that I saw the sun rise in the west once . . .

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

OK. A few clarifications.

1) It is NC not SC (as I erroneously stated)

2) Vantage point of the document was the surface, yours was from the ground to in flight. Big diff. (cool as it must have been.)

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Valiant Dancer

Absolutely. I was simply offering a tangentially related anecdote, not attempting to validate the original post.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Grin! That's like flying from Sydney to Valaparaiso -- you actually arrive before you depart!

Silas

You missed the part about the full moon rising over the Atlantic at the same time, too. Here's an online map (hope that fits) of the area. It's part of the North Carolina Outer Banks.

Of course, the Gulf of Mexico is considered an arm of the Atlantic Ocean (according to my Ame. Her. Dic.) so anybody on the west coast of Florida can see sunsets over the "Atlantic." Some of the keys could probably duplicate the moon rise/sun set feat.

Update

My family went to see the movie version of the book tonight and I found out through them that the scriptwriters introduced a telescope and star viewing into the plot. That's the good news.

The bad news is that they were observing a star that had been named through a star registry.

<font size=-1>[Added IMDb url]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GrapesOfWrath on 2002-09-01 07:18 ]</font>

LOL!

Two steps forward, one step back... or is it the other way around?

Since it was my turn to endure Shane West, I got to see A Walk To Remember myself tonight. I found out that my daughters left out a lot of the astronomy.

The main character built a dobsonian when she was 12, and she shows Saturn to her boyfriend, in the cemetary to avoid lights I guess. Later, he studies hard and builds her an even bigger one, in order to get a view of Hyakutake as it flies over--and the comet (not Hyakutake) does perceptably move as they view it. But, this movie had an unpainted sonotube in it.