SANTA AND THE MOON
Peter Barthel, Communicating Astronomy to the Public, May 2012, (12) p13 – 15.

Link to journal | link to arxiv abstract | link to pdf

Rare example of Christmas media showing an astronomically correct moon.

“We have established that illustrators and designers draw moons ad libitum, according to their taste, but often physically incorrect. The most common mistake is the early morning waning moon shown in an evening scene. Our research focussed on Sinterklaas, Santa Claus, and Christmas scenes, with a short side trip to Sint Maarten and Halloween. The apparent lack of knowledge concerning the physics of the moon phases is most likely widespread and not just limited to the countries examined here. Further investigations are however outside the scope of the present research.”

(see more of Popperfont’s Sciencegeek Advent Calendar Extravanganza here)