Isle of Wight photographer and weather watcher, Jamie Russell, shares his take on the hype about the super blue blood moon. Ed
People here in the UK keep going on about this and I keep seeing posts on Facebook about it too, so here is what will really happen.
Blood Moon
A blood moon is just a lunar eclipse, which can be great to watch but this one WILL NOT be visible here in the UK.
A lunar eclipse is when the earth casts a shadow of itself (from the sun’s wonderful light) on the moon and the reason it turns red/orange is the same reason why sunset is red/orange. Basically the only light reaching the moon is what manages to seep through the atmosphere of the earth and this light is filtered through the atmosphere until only the red/orange part of the spectrum can pass through.
Super Moon
A super moon is just when the moon is at Perigee i.e closer to earth on its slightly elliptical orbit and this happens many, many times a year and sometimes it falls on a full moon.
Blue Moon
A blue moon is not a visible astronomical phenomena! The lunar cycle takes 29.5 days (approx) which means every 29.5 days we get a full moon.
Now if a full moon happens to fall on the first couple of days of a month it means we will see a second full moon at the end of the month and it’s this second full moon that has been named “a blue moon” and this does happen rarely (hence the saying once in a blue moon), but there is nothing visually different than any other “close” full moon, as it will be the standard Perigee full moon (closest to earth period).
Full moons
There are three full moons for each of spring, summer, autumn and winter when basing it on earth’s astronomical seasons.
The fourth moon of any given season being the blue, one based on it being the second full moon of the month that it falls on, which is based on a cycle of approx three years, when days slowly build up year after year (like a leap year).
The slightly shorter lunar cycle than earth’s astronomical months leads to an excess of days building up per month, which after a few years allows the moon to back up on itself (timewise) and give an extra full moon.
It’s a super looking moon
Here’s Jamie’s shot taken tonight of the super moon behind Culver (click on the image to see larger version)
Image: © Island Visions
