By Carol Tannenhauser
If you want to see a “blue supermoon,” you better look tonight. The next one won’t be until January 2037, NASA reports.
What’s a blue supermoon? “When the moon is at or near its closest point to Earth at the same time as it is full, it is called a supermoon,” the space agency says. “A blue moon is a term for when we see the full moon twice in one month,” which will occur tonight, at 9:36 p.m., EST.
Don’t expect the moon to be blue. “That’s just the term for two full moons in a month,” NASA says. But it will appear 18% bigger — the difference between a nickel and a quarter — and brighter than usual, IF, of course, the weather cooperates. It looks like it could go either way. Send pictures to info@westsiderag.com and we’ll post.
Update, 9/31, 9 a.m.: West Side Rag readers never disappoint, nor did the blue supermoon, according to graphic designer Randy Enochs, who started off our photo chain. “What a beauty! I took these photos from the Upper West Side on Amsterdam Avenue,” he wrote of the one above and the one directly below.
Here’s one by Kathe Davridge, Rooftop, 85th and West End Avenue.
The following is from Audrey Beeber David, West 72nd and Broadway.
Here are two by Nancy Ellman taken over the reservoir.
The next is by Linda Emanuel over 90th Street.
The following is by Barry Langer.
Here’s one from Han-hua Chan:
Below is “the beautiful Blue Super Moon from our beautiful Rooftop of JCC Manhattan” by Valerie Loei.
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The term “blue moon” refers to a 3rd full moon when there was a rare 4 full moons within a season: there was no name for a 4th full moon so the 3rd full moon became the “blue moon” in those seasons.
A mistake was made in the
1940s in an astronomy magazine stating that a blue moon was the 2nd full moon in a month. That caught on but some like the original definition because it names the moon missing a name.
You can find the moon names and more explanation of moons online, ex. the Royal Museums of Greenwich website.
Thank you for the information!
For once, I remembered to go out and look at an astrological event.
I was working my overnight at Bellevue and drug my colleague out for a look. We had to walk a bit to find her hiding behind the building, but then Boom!, there she was just huge and glorious!
Beautiful images! Thank you, everyone.
I enjoyed the views of the Blue Moon within the context of the Upper West Side. It made the photos so much more meaningful.
Beautiful shots.!! Thank you for sharing these
We have some talented photographers