That's a good question. The Easter rule ignores February 29, so it carries with it the tacit assumption that the lunar month jumps a day then. But you can think of the year as beginning on March 1, so that February comes at the end. This means the Easter Sunday would not be affected by this. By the way, the Easter Full Moon was out last night. I was at the Science Museum as part of Richmond Astronomical Society/SMV skywatch, and I got several pictures of this big lit-up circle in the sky. We did get to see the Moon, Saturn, Mars, and some stars through the telescopes, and it was clear enough so that the stars can be made out through the light pollution. I have attached a photo of the Moon that I got with my telescope and digital camera. I didn't see any birds, though. Jim Blowers _____ From: juliekazz@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:juliekazz@xxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Saturday, 2008 March 22 07:53 To: jimvb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [va-richmond-general] Last night's meeting does Leap year factor into this? -Julie -------------- Original message -------------- From: "Jim Blowers" <jimvb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Last night's meeting (2008 March 20 - Maundy Thursday) was good. I felt I learned something about penguins and other wildlife in the Antarctic. But the meeting still lacked something. There was no pre-meeting dinner, and we had to cut business and bird reporting out. There was much less time for socializing. The cause is Easter Sunday, the earliest that it will ever be in our lifetimes. That caused Maundy Thursday to collide with our meeting. This will happen whenever Easter is March 22, 23, or 24 or between April 18 and April 24 (but not April 25). I looked at a calendar and found that Easter is April 24 in 2011, April 20 in 2014, and April 21 in 2019. It seems to me that we need to set a policy as to what we do in years like these. I think we should set the date of the meeting on the 4 th Thursday of April (next time March would be involved is not until after 2100) whenever this happens. I don't know if St Luke's Lutheran has events that night or not, and maybe we can't reserve the place on that date until 2010, but we should be thinking about it. Jim Blowers
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