Posted: 30 Dec 2009 06:11 AM PST

LOS ANGELES — Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve.

Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.

"If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.

The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.

However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month — a blue moon — occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"'Blue moon' is just a name in the same sense as a 'hunter's moon' or a 'harvest moon,"' Laughlin said in an e-mail.

The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.

Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.

In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."

———

On the Net:

http://www.miamisci.org/www/eventsplan.html

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Rare New Year's Eve 'blue moon' to ring in 2010 - Delaware County Daily Times

Posted: 30 Dec 2009 02:29 AM PST

By ALICIA CHANG,AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve.

Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.

The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.

However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.

"If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month — a blue moon — occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"'Blue moon' is just a name in the same sense as a 'hunter's moon' or a 'harvest moon,'" Laughlin said in an e-mail.

The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.

Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.

In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Blue moon to occur on New Year’s Eve - Lake County News

Posted: 30 Dec 2009 02:15 AM PST

LAKE COUNTY – Get ready for some extra special sparkle on New Year's Eve when the second full moon of December – which makes it a blue moon – shines over your festivities on Thursday.

To be called a "blue moon," the moon must be full for the second time in a calendar month, which will occur on Thursday, Dec. 31 – New Year's Eve – for the first time in almost 20 years.

A blue moon occurs every two and half years, but the last time there was a blue moon on New Year's Eve was in 1990 – and the next will be in 2028.

Although the moon will not appear to be blue, the modern definition a blue moon is relatively new, and began in the 1940s, according to NASA.

The Farmer's Almanac of Maine offered a definition of blue moon so convoluted that even professional astronomers struggled to understand it, according to a recent NASA statement. The definition involved factors such as the ecclesiastical dates of Easter and Lent, and the timing of seasons according to the dynamical mean sun.

To explain blue moons to the masses, Sky & Telescope magazine published an article in 1946 entitled "Once in a Blue Moon," where the author James Hugh Pruett cited the 1937 Maine almanac and opined that the "second [full moon] in a month, so I interpret it, is called Blue Moon."

Philip Hiscock of the Department of Folklore at the Memorial University of Newfoundland states that, "The phrase 'Blue Moon' has been around for more than 400 years, and during that time its meaning has shifted," according to the NASA release.

NASA further stated that if you said that something occurs "once in a Blue Moon," to a person in Shakespeare's time, they would attach no astronomical meaning to the statement – it only meant something that very rarely occurs, like the phrase the "Twelfth of Never."

Each full moon also has a name and the full moon on Thursday will be the "Full Long Night Moon," so named because the Winter Solstice, when the sun "stands still," occurred on Dec. 21, marking the time when lengthening night begins its decline and the daytime begins to lengthen.

In addition to a full moon and blue moon on New Year's Eve, which could bathe Lake County in lunar light (cloud cover permitting, as rains are forecast to continue through Friday), a partial eclipse will also be visible from Europe, Africa and Asia.

For more on blue moons, visit the following:

www.ips-planetarium.org/planetarian/articles/folkloreBlueMoon.html and

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29dec_bluemoon.htm?list193967 .

E-mail Terre Logsdon at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .

Blue moon will help ring in the new year - Times Union

Posted: 30 Dec 2009 02:01 AM PST

LOS ANGELES -- Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve.

Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue -- the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month -- a blue moon -- occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error later, the definition stuck. For purists, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.

What a night: blue moon, new year - Columbus Dispatch

Posted: 30 Dec 2009 03:05 AM PST

LOS ANGELES— Once in a blue moon, there is one on New Year's Eve.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. Another will appear Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.

However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve, when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month -- a blue moon -- occurs every 2.5 years. The last time a blue moon appeared was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last was in 1990; the next won't come until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"Blue moon is just a name in the same sense as a hunter's moon or a harvest moon," Laughlin said in an e-mail.

The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.

Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Almanacs

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Almanacs “Rare New Year’s Eve 'blue moon' to ring in 2010 - Petoskey News-Review” plus 4 more

Almanacs “Rare New Year’s Eve 'blue moon' to ring in 2010 - Petoskey News-Review” plus 4 more

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts