Starry Night

I actually have kept track of time by the stars. Not so much by the stars, I guess, but by the moon. This summer, I was working at a sleep-away summer camp in Kansas, outside the small town of Williamsburg, which is about 45 minutes south of metropolitan Kansas City, Kansas. Basically, it's in the middle of nowhere, and you can see the most beautiful night sky I've ever seen. That's counting the night sky in the middle of the desert and at the Grand Canyon. (You can also see a killer sunset, better than a sunset over the Grand Canyon or over the Pacific, but that's another matter. You might not guess it, but Kansas is a really beautiful place.) Anyhow, I definitely kept track of time by the phases of the moon. The camp was kind of like a retreat, so each group of kids only stayed for one week (a week is actually pretty long for a retreat, especially for 7th and 8th graders). We were always on a strict hour-minute time clock day-by-day, but day of the month never really mattered much. We could tell you what day of the week it was, cause the kids showed up on Monday and left on Saturday, but no one could ever keep weeks straight because the date didn't really matter. However, a couple of weeks into the summer, we realized that we could figure out what week it was based on the phases of the moon. We would remember when the last time we had a full moon was (cause the starts weren't quite as good) and when we had a new moon (you'd have to remember a flashlight and the stars were spectacular). That gave us a general idea of what week it was in the month. I've become much more aware of the moon at least even after coming home from camp. I wouldn't say I tell time by it, but it's definitely something that I feel present to at this point.

Also, can we go over the difference between the sidereal period and the synodic peroid of the moon? And the difference between the synodic period of a planet and the zodiacal period?

(Sorry for the somewhat long post. Talking about camp is one of my favorite things.)