The Moon, The Full Moon, The Harvest Moon, The Blue Moon, ... The Moon

September 11, 2012  •  Leave a Comment

The Moon constantly begs for out attention. Yes, it has been a while since humans actually visited that celestial body, but now we at least gaze at it from Earth. A lunar eclipse sure begs for attention, as does solar eclipse. Moonrise and moonset correspond to sunrise and sunset. But there just appears to be so much more to the Earth's satellite. Farmer's almanac gives each full moon a special name.

August 2012 Full Blue Moon over the Skyline of the city of Buffalo, New York (NY) at blue hour twilight dusk.Blue Moon over Buffalo Two full moons in a single month are the simpler definition of a blue moon. There's also another one that defines a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full  moons. I will stick with the simpler one :-)

Every 19 years two blue moons happen in a single year.  When that happens, it is almost always in January and March thanks to the short month of February in between.

When August has just one full moon its name is Full Sturgeon Moon. When there are two, I am assuming the first one is the Full Sturgeon Moon and the second one the Blue Moon. But that is my interpretation so don't hold me to it.
 
Previous Blue Moons: 2010 (March 1, March 30), 2009 (December 2, December 31)
Future Blue Moons: 2015 (July 2, July 31), 2018 (January 2, January 31), 2018 (March 2, March 31), 2020 (October 1, October 31)

Have fun gazing up!


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