Catch a glimpse of a Blue Moon on Friday

Considering that a lunar cycle is 29.53 days, July 2015 is bringing two full moons instead of the regular one per month that we usually get. It will also might incur the wrath of those who have made promises of “once in a blue moon” without scientific knowledge of how often the event even occurs.

Has anyone every told you something outrageous to which you replied, “I’m sure that happens once in a blue moon”? One belief on the origin of the term “blue moon” is that “blue” is a corruption of the obsolete term “belewe” meaning to betray, with another full moon in a month being seen as somehow unnatural.

Last quarter moon: About 21 days after the new moon, we see a last quarter moon. It’s our second full moon this month making it blue moon, which only happen once in a “blue moon” The blue moon Friday certainly doesn’t sport a blue tinge to it but it’s a wonderful summer delight even though it messes up stargazing with all its light. Given the short error figures in the math, they accumulate each year and eventually form into a complete 13 full moons within a 12 month long year, and that brings us to what astronomers call a blue moon. Not only that, this isn’t really a good time to explore the moon either. It all comes down to two things; the moon’s orbit around the Earth and the sun’s light reflecting off the moon.

This is one of the years where the numbers have gathered up together and amounted to that extra full moon which will be visible on the sky this Friday. As white beam from the moon pass through the cloud particles, it appears to be color blue. Any time a sky watcher sees a moon of a different color, this is due to something on Earth, not in space. The Earth, moon and sun are at a right angle to each other. People saw blue moons after the 1983 eruption of the El Chichon volcano in Mexico. This is a wonderful time to start viewing our lunar neighbor with a telescope.