Moon Watch at Sleights Pasture

by Yvonne Luke.

IAG made a visit to Sleights Pasture prehistoric monument to witness the Major Moon Standstill overnight on 10/11 June 2025.

We congregated in daylight at 9pm to prepare for a long but interesting night. There were a small number of cows in the field with calves so we pitched camp in the corner of the adjacent field, approximately 100m NE of the monument complex. There was a good view of the site with Ingleborough immediately behind it. 

The full summer moon rose out of Park Fell at about 1:10am. The larks started singing at 3am, and we realised we could faintly see the field wall – dawn (still an hour and a half away) had started!

Ten minutes later the moon sank into Swinetail, the eastern side of Ingleborough summit.  It was a beautiful sight, worth the wait.

This is the lowest trajectory of the summer moon for 18.6 years. Some of us will be in our mid 80s before it happens quite like this again! I, for one, hope to be around still ….

Yvonne Luke will be giving a talk to IAG on 17 November - Mooning about Ingleborough - when she will discuss fieldwork results linking the positioning of prehistoric monuments with the major moon standstill period.