Moonlight Visibility Case Ledger (2026-04-09)

Purpose:

• provide the concrete case ledger for end-to-end moonlight-aware visibility validation
• turn the moonlight integration plan into explicit future case families
• preserve the distinction between formula validation and event-level validation

Upstream documents:

• wiki/03_validation/MOONLIGHT_VISIBILITY_INTEGRATION_PLAN_2026-04-09.md
• wiki/03_validation/HELIACAL_VALIDATION_MATRIX_2026-04-09.md

Current status:

• partially populated ledger
• no live-ephemeris moonlight integration corpus admitted yet

Candidate Case Table

Case ID	Target family	Example target	Moon regime	Separation regime	Expected relation	Admission status	Notes
MVC-001	planet	TBD threshold planet	near full, above horizon	near or moderate	K&S path should delay or suppress event vs ignore path	candidate_needed	Bright-moon suppression anchor case.
MVC-002	planet	same or similar target as MVC-001	quarter moon	near or moderate	K&S penalty should be weaker than MVC-001	candidate_needed	Phase-scaling comparison case.
MVC-003	planet	same or similar target class	any phase	Moon below horizon	K&S and IGNORE paths should agree closely	candidate_needed	Null-effect anchor case.
MVC-004	planet	similar target class	bright moon	large separation	K&S penalty should be smaller than near-moon case	candidate_needed	Spatial-falloff anchor case.
MVC-005	star	TBD later	bright moon	near or moderate	same directional behavior as planetary cases	deferred_until_planetary_slice	Do not start with stellar cases.

Current Admitted Formula-Layer Evidence

These are not yet live-ephemeris event rows, but they are already enforced and should be treated as the mathematical baseline:

Evidence ID	Evidence kind	Current enforcement path	Status	Notes
MVE-001	full Moon brighter than quarter Moon	tests/unit/test_heliacal_visibility_policy.py	admitted_formula_baseline	Confirms phase scaling direction in the K&S layer.
MVE-002	near-Moon sky brighter than far-from-Moon sky	tests/unit/test_heliacal_visibility_policy.py	admitted_formula_baseline	Confirms separation scaling direction.
MVE-003	zero moonlight when Moon below horizon	tests/unit/test_heliacal_visibility_policy.py	admitted_formula_baseline	Governs future null-effect event cases.
MVE-004	zero moonlight when target below horizon	tests/unit/test_heliacal_visibility_policy.py	admitted_formula_baseline	Preserves geometric null condition.
MVE-005	assessment populates moonlight diagnostics when K&S policy is active	tests/unit/test_heliacal_visibility_policy.py	admitted_formula_baseline	Confirms policy routing and diagnostic exposure.

Admission Status Meanings

• candidate_needed slot reserved; no concrete case captured yet
• deferred_until_planetary_slice valid case family, but intentionally postponed
• captured_pending_review case identified but not yet admitted
• admitted_future_row ready for future validation implementation

Minimum Recorded Fields

Each future case row should record:

• target
• target family
• observer latitude
• observer longitude
• event kind
• start date or JD
• Moon phase description
• Moon altitude regime
• target-Moon separation regime
• result under MoonlightPolicy.IGNORE
• result under MoonlightPolicy.KRISCIUNAS_SCHAEFER_1991
• expected relationship between the two

Assertion Intent by Family

Suppression or delay family

Expected outcome:

• moonlight-aware event later than ignore event, or missing where ignore finds one

Null-effect family

Expected outcome:

• nearly identical result when Moon is below horizon

Spatial falloff family

Expected outcome:

• near-moon case shows stronger penalty than far-moon case

Phase scaling family

Expected outcome:

• full moon case shows stronger penalty than quarter-moon case

Priority Order

1. one bright-moon suppression case
2. one null-effect below-horizon case
3. one phase-comparison case
4. one separation-comparison case
5. only then any stellar moonlight cases

Current Honest State

The moonlight layer is formula-validated but not yet event-level corpus-validated.

This ledger exists so that future integration rows can be admitted deliberately, with explicit expected relations rather than vague “looks plausible” judgments.