Once in a Blue Moon

Tonight's moon is BLUE! and just WHAT does that mean??

Interestingly enough-- there is a mathematical equation for it!

once in a blue moon = 1.16699016 × 10-8 hertz

Go figure!

Another explanation is found here:

http://www.obliquity.com/astro/bluemoon.html

and.... http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/30may_bluemoon.htm?list61925

This photo is a false-color composite image of the Moon from 425,000 km



The image was created using 3 exposures through different filters. The exaggerated color helps determine surface composition (blue is titanium-rich, orange lower titanium, purple pyroclastic, red iron and titanium poor). Mare Tranquillitatis is the blue area at right, Oceanus Procellarum is the blue and orange area on the left, the 85 km diameter Tycho crater is at bottom center, and Copernicus crater is just above and left of the center of the image. The moon is 3,476 km in diameter and north is up. (Galileo, P-41491)

While the image isn't blue... it does offer a totally different view of our lunar companion.

While out walking the dog tonight- the moon was just rising through the last of the clouds from our recent rains. It was such a spectacular sight and I wished I could have photographed it myself! Since that wasn't happeneing- I decided to blog it instead! And, of course I have to research anything and everything first... so....

go ahead and google "blue moon" and discover as I did that the phrase "once in a blue moon" has several definitions; but, suffice it to mean "not very often". The most interesting thing I discovered was that it is possilbe for a year to have two blue moons! Not often- but, about every 19 years or so!

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bluemoon1.html

After all these thoughts on the moon- "the man in the moon" naturally followed and natch I had to google that, too!
While I'll not bore you with the details of that search-- I will encourage you to find a copy of Reese Witherspoon's first movie "Man in the Moon"- a really Southern coming-of-age story that takes you back to an innocent era. It's one of those that I watch about once a month... it never occured to me that it might (or might not be) lunar tidal related!



Disclaimer: the spell-checker feature isn't working and I won't be held accountable for the typos! I can spell and if allowed to make all corrections orally, I'm sure I could compete in the Nat'l Spelling Bee... but, that's a whole 'nother blog!