Luna moth color is blue-green in the north and for the over-wintering generation in the central and southern states; second and third generation wing color has more of a yellow-green tint. Described and named "Phalena plumata caudata" by James Petiver in 1700, this was the first North American saturniid to be reported in the insect literature. The initial Latin name, which roughly translates to "brilliant, feather tail", was replaced when Carl Linnaeus described the species in 1758 in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, and renamed it "Phalaena luna", later "Actias luna", with "luna" derived from Luna, the Roman moon goddess. The
Celestial navigation celestial navigation, referred to as the 'altitude-intercept method'. There are several other methods of celestial navigation that will also provide position-finding using sextant observations, such as the noon sight, and the more archaic lunar distance method. Joshua Slocum used the lunar distance method during the first recorded single-handed circumnavigation of the world. Unlike the altitude-intercept method, the noon sight and lunar distance methods do not require accurate knowledge of time. The altitude-intercept method of celestial navigation requires that the observer know exact Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) at the moment of his observation of the celestial body, to the second—since for