If you’ve seen balls of fire falling from the sky recently, don’t be alarmed. It’s the annual Orionid meteor shower, peaking this week. Best viewing time this year is likely 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on Monday and Tuesday nights.
The Orionids are flecks of dust and rock left over from Halley’s Comet. Think of it as a long, long trail of flotsam left in the wake of the comet, spread out all along its orbit. Halley’s Comet only swoops around the Earth once every 75 years, but every year, we pass through these scraps of it.
(The image above, by the way, is a rendering of the Leonids, not the Orionids: “Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over North America on the night of November 12-13, 1833,” by E. Weiß in Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt, 1988.)
September’s full Moon is coming up, the so-called “Harvest Moon,” which is the full Moon nearest to the autumnal equinox (September 23rd). The arrival of this year’s Harvest Moon will depend on which time zone you happen to live in. If you live in the Eastern Time Zone, the moment the Moon turns full will occur just after midnight—at 12:33 a.m. on Saturday, the 14th. But if you live elsewhere in the country—in the Central, Mountain, or Pacific time zones—the moment that the Moon turns full comes before midnight on Friday, the 13th!
Split Time Zone Full Moon: How Often Does This Happen?
Interestingly, the last time this happened—June 13, 2014—it was the reverse of what will happen this month. It was a Friday the 13th full Moon solely for the Eastern Time Zone, with the Moon turning full just after midnight; for the rest of the country, the full Moon was the day before, on Thursday, the 12th. Nationwide we haven’t had a Friday the 13th full Moon since October 13th, 2000, and it won’t happen again until August 13th, 2049!
It has been calculated that to have a full Moon occur on the 13th day of a particular month, and for that day to be a Friday, it is (on average) a once in 20-year occurrence!
Why The Harvest Moon is Unique
What sets this upcoming full Moon apart from the others is that farmers, at the peak of the current harvest season, can work late into the night by this Moon’s light. The Moon rises about the time the Sun sets, but more importantly, at this time of year, instead of rising its normal average 50 minutes later each day, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night leading up to when it’s full. For example, between September 12th and 14th, the rising of the Moon comes, on average, less than 27 minutes later each night, thus providing light for the farmer to continue gathering crops, even after the Sun has set.
The reason for this seasonal circumstance is that at this time of the year, the path of the Moon through the sky is as close to being along the horizon as it can get. Thus, from night to night the Moon moves more horizontally than vertically and thus rises sooner from one night to the next.
A Micro Moon?
To add to this full Moon “madness,” this upcoming full Moon very nearly coincides with apogee—that point in its orbit which places it at its greatest distance from the Earth: 252,100 miles away. Remember last February, when the full Moon coincided with perigee, its closest point to Earth? The Moon was more than 30,000 miles closer and was accordingly branded a “Supermoon.”
But this month’s full Moon will appear about 14 percent smaller, leading some to call it a “Micro” Moon.
It is almost certain that many will claim that this year’s full Harvest Moon indeed appears to be smaller than usual. But the truth of the matter is, that without knowing in advance whether a full Moon of a given month might be branded either “Super” or “Micro,” the appearance of our natural satellite to most really doesn’t look all that much different.
Here’s hoping for clear skies so you can get outside an enjoy it!
Today’s the birthday of French composer Claude Debussy, 1862 – 1918. One of his best-loved pieces is this, “Clair de Lune.” Its title comes from a poem by Paul Verlaine, written in 1869.
The last verse of the poem reads (translated from the French):
With the sad and beautiful moonlight,
Which sets the birds in the trees dreaming,
And makes the fountains sob with ecstasy,
The tall slim water streams among the marble statues.
Tonight would surely be a great night to go outside and look at the moon.
Yes, I know, the names of these moons are getting a little ridiculous. But this one’s for real. You won’t be able to see it, but rest assured it’s there.
It’ll look something like this:
A “black moon” is the second new moon of a month. This one is also a “super moon” because it’s at its closest point to the earth in its monthly orbit. For more, see the explanation here. Happy viewing!
We’re still getting rain from Hurricane Barry (now Tropical Storm Barry) here in New Orleans. But in following the storm, many of us relied on reports and analyses from the National Hurricane Center.
Alan Broussard, one of the main characters in my novel THE NIGHT OF THE COMET, was inspired in part by a guy I went to high school with. You probably had one in your school, too: a science nerd who knew everything about space and weather and clouds. The one at our school–let’s call him “Jack”–used to stand out in the parking lot in his black raincoat studying the sky, his weather radio pressed to his ear. He could predict the weather better than the TV weathermen could. He was teased mercilessly for this, of course. But to his credit, Jack stood his ground, he kept his eyes on the clouds . . .
And today, he’s a Senior Hurricane Specialist at the National Hurricane Center. I’ve seen his name on the reports about Hurricane Barry. His predictions are always right on the money.
Image from “Flowers of the Sky,” by Richard A. Proctor (1879). I’ll post more soon, but if you’re impatient you can see lots of wonderful images of comets here at Public Domain Review.
On Saturday, May 18, 2019, at 5:11 p.m. Eastern Time, May’s Flower Moon officially turns full. This particular full Moon is also referred to as a “Blue Moon,” however some may be confused by this name. Most people know that we usually refer to a “Blue Moon” when we have two full Moons in a month. There is, however, an alternate definition for a Blue Moon, which is what the Moon on May 18th is.
The Seasonal Blue Moon Definition
Typically, each of the four seasons contains three full Moons. However, sometimes a particular season will have four. When that happens, the third full Moon of that seasonal lunar quartet is designated as a Blue Moon (although no one is sure why the third, and not the fourth, is the one that gets the Blue Moon moniker).
In 2019, spring in the Northern Hemisphere runs from March 20th to June 21st. During that time span of slightly more than three months, these are the full Moon occurrences (in Eastern Time zones):
Full Worm Moon: March 20, 2019
Full Pink Moon: April 19, 2019
Full Flower Moon: May 18, 2019 (Blue Moon)
Full Strawberry Moon: June 17, 2019
That final full Moon falls before the summer solstice, so it’s not the first full Moon of summer, but rather the fourth full Moon of spring. That makes the May 18th Moon—the third of the four full Moons of spring—a “Blue Moon.” It will also be the last seasonal Blue Moon until August 22, 2021.
