2018.01.31 07:00 - Super Blue Blood Moon and Selenelion

    The Guardian for this meeting was Riddle Sideways. The comments are by Riddle Sideways.

     

    Riddle Sideways: hello Listener, old friend
    Riddle Sideways: was hard to go and stay asleep early last night. The Supermoon was so bright, lighting up the bedroom.
    Riddle Sideways: then around 4:30 it was dark!
    Riddle Sideways: got up slowly, sleepily and with intentions of going back to bed
                   --BELL--
    Riddle Sideways: no moon out the window nor out the sliding glass to deck nor bathtub window
    Riddle Sideways: cell phone app SkyMap shows the moon right out this window through many trees :(
    Riddle Sideways: get dressed warmly, go outside, stand in meadow
    Riddle Sideways: stare at biggest moon in a long time. near horizon, so it looks even bigger
    Riddle Sideways: and so Red
    Riddle Sideways: dim
    Riddle Sideways: took photos, but none are at all like the real thing
                   --BELL--
    Riddle Sideways: Please allow a dump of some Maths onto a perfectly beautiful experience ㋡
    Riddle Sideways: there are 29.53 days in a lunar cycle. there are about 635.24 days in a tropical year. therefore 12.37 lunations in a year.
    Riddle Sideways: with the Fun humans have had with calendars there are 12 months of some 30, some 31 and one of 28 or 29 days. Putting almost always a full moon in each month, but not aligned.
    Riddle Sideways: in a year there are 11 extra days of lunar cycle left over to carry to the next year. It works out closest to 7 blue moons in a 19 year cycle, which is about one every 2-3 years.
    Riddle Sideways: a neat cycle is drawn on the (colour) board.
                   --BELL--
    Riddle Sideways: Now, about the 'Supermoon', the full moon that coincides with the closest distance of the eliptical orbit of the moon to earth.
    Riddle Sideways: there is a technical name "Perigee Syzygy" (carefull pronouncing that one) which is really about the New moon.
    Riddle Sideways: So, the New moon this January ended up with 2 SuperMoons (Jan.2 and Jan.31)

    Riddle Sideways: then about this eclipse event. Yeah, the moon goes behind the earth were the shadow is, once a month, but it is not always in the parallel Sun-Earth-Moon plane.
                   --BELL--
    Riddle Sideways: There are 2-5 partial lunar eclipses each year, a total lunar eclipse is a less common thing. And to happen where you live is less likely a chance.
    Riddle Sideways: Then there is yet another special event... Selenelion, is when you can see both the Sun and the eclipsed Moon at the same time. Like this morning at around 6 when sunrise was starting and the lunar eclipse was starting to end.
    Riddle Sideways: No mater which calculator is being used to plot the overlapping cycles of all the above events, it was so good to have been alive this morning!

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