iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 are officially coming to iPhones and iPads next week, but you don’t have to wait until then to get your hands on the final release candidates of the new operating systems.

While it’s always possible for Apple to fix or tweak the publicly available version of iOS or iPadOS, the Release Candidate is usually the final version of the operating system that anyone can access on launch day. That said, you don’t run the risk of installing a faulty operating system on your iPhone if you install the release candidate today before the majority of iPhone and iPad owners get it.

But before you pull the shutter button, take a few moments to make sure you’ve backed up your device to iCloud or a connected desktop or laptop. This applies to CYA, just in case your device fails to update or one of your critical apps has problems with iOS 14.5. Those circumstances are more likely in the future transition between iOS 14-point whatever and iOS 15, but it never hurts to be careful.

Once you are ready, all you have to do is register your device for iOS public beta or Developer beta. Either works from this point on; I used the latter and recently received notification to update to the release candidate for iOS 14.5.

As a quick reminder, sign up for either beta version by downloading a profile to your device (which means you’ll need to use Safari to access either website). You then start your Settings App> General> Profile and install it, reset your phone and then Perform a software update by following the usual steps. Once you have iOS 14.5 installed on your device, you can go back to the same screen and remove the profile to opt out of future beta updates (unless you want to live on the wild side).

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Screenshot: David Murphy

We’ll have a full guide to iOS 14.5 next week, but if you’d like to try out some of the new features, we’ve covered the following so far:

Photo: Eric Boucher (Shutterstock)

What most people know about the moon is that it orbits the earth and that it may or may not have a giant face engraved on it. But the luminescent sphere contains a multitude that may interest amateur stargazers, and understanding their phases is a good place to start. Memorizing a simple memory device can help you become an amateur Galileo, or at least impress a friend or a date.

First a little about the phases of the moon

The only reason we can even see the moon is because of the sun, which is the only source of light in our solar system. The moon enters in phases, depending on its orbit; When the moon is fully lit by the sun, we have a full moon.

After the full moon, the light of the globe gradually diminishes as it moves farther away from the earth, until it returns to please us again with its glory (i.e. another full moon).

The moon presents itself in eight different phases during its 27-day cycle. distilled here by NASA:

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• new moon
• Increasing Moon
• First quarter
• Gibbous grow
• Full
• Waning gibbous
• Third quarter
• Waning moon

Since you will likely have trouble remembering these terms without a little help, there is an acronym that will help you remember the order of the moons. Like the website A star in a star indicates thisYou can remember the order of the moons by using the phrase “Never Stop Getting Food” that appears when read over the first few letters of each word New moon, half moon, quarter, gibbous and Full (i.e. NCQGF).

Of course, then the waning side of the moon comes into play, which requires you to reverse the order of the letters – FGQCN – for Full, gibbous, quarter, crescent moon, and New.

Remember these three letters

The next memory device to remember depends on what hemisphere you live in. For people in the northern hemisphere, however, it is “DOC”. For people in the southern hemisphere, the device is inverted and becomes “cash on delivery”. There is no standard scientific reason for this rule to exist as it is simply the product of the shape of the visible moon.

It all depends on which side of the moon is lit. If the right side of the moon is visible while the left side is still dark, you basically have a D shape indicating a growing crescent moon and the first quarter.

A full “O” represents a growing gibbous and a full moon, while a “C” is represented by a waning gibbous, third quarter, or waning crescent, the latter most closely resembling a “C”.

All of this, of course, is reversed when you look at the moon from the southern hemisphere. How EarthSky explains: “Observers in the northern and southern hemisphere apparently see the moon upside down to one another.”

Understanding the moon is key

The gibbous moon occurs on either side of the invisible new moon, making it either the growing “D” or the decreasing “C” in the reminder.

The website science explains how this works and how it can be educational in understanding how the moon works in general:

A gibbous moon is an almost entire moon with a crescent of darkness covering one side of the moon. The light portion of the gibbous moon is slightly egg-shaped, and the gibbous moon comes on either side of the full moon.

Basically, the phases of the moon take place over the course of a month and you can follow the cycle by keeping an eye on the “DOC” device. That way you can look up to the stars and tell your friends that a full moon is coming and convince them that you are a cosmological sage.