Lunar months
In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two successive syzygies (new moons or full moons). The use of the lunar month varies by which culture has utilized the method, the main difference being when the "new" month begins.
This article deals with the definitions of a 'month' that are mainly of significance in astronomy. For other definitions, including a description of a month in the calendars of different cultures around the world, see: month.
In Shona, Middle-Eastern, and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon becomes first visible at evening after conjunction with the Sun one or two days before that evening (e.g., in the Islamic calendar). In ancient Egypt the lunar month began on the day when the waning moon could no longer be seen just before sunrise. Others use calculation, of varying degrees of sophistication, e.g., the Hebrew calendar or the ecclesiastical lunar calendar. Yet others run from full moon to full moon. Calendars count integer days, so months may be 29 or 30 days in length, in some regular or irregular sequence. In India the month from conjunction to conjunction is divided into thirty parts known as tithis. The date is named after the tithi ruling at sunrise. As the tithi is shorter than the day the date sometimes jumps.
There are several types of lunar month. Usually the term lunar month refers to the synodic month, because it is the cycle of visible moon phases. Most of the following types of months (but not the distinction between sidereal and tropical months) were first recognized in Babylonian lunar astronomy.
The period of the Moon's orbit as defined with respect to the celestial sphere (of the fixed stars, nowadays the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF)) is known as a sidereal month because it is the time it takes the Moon to return to a similar position among the stars (Latin: sidera): 27.321661 days (27 d 7 h 43 min 11.5 s). This type of month has been observed among cultures in the Middle East, India, and China in the following way: they divided the sky into 27 or 28 lunar mansions, one for each day of the month, identified by the prominent star(s) in them.
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