Starship Asterisk*

What is a blue moon anyway?

[url]http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/what-is-a-blue-moon/[/url]

With the current system, as soon as we add another month to the calendar (and why wouldn't we? If Caesar could do it...) then there won't ever be any blue moons ever again.

So, every 19 years there is a double "blue" moon year?

It's a great picture...I'd love to know what lens the photographer used, and how far he was from the tree.

Basing our reaction to this pic on focus isn't going to work too well, since none of it is really sharp. See these two closeups of parts of the pic -- branches and Moon, rock and grass. Looks to me like a lot of processing artifacts in, perhaps, an attempt to sharpen it after the fact. But it just may be the camera's internal attempts to deal with a very low light level scene. At any rate, I see nothing to suggest it is a composite, and I find the effect pleasing despite the lack of sharpness. It's Art!

Rob

[attachment=0]bitopic.jpeg[/attachment]

Nicolas, I disagree. I don't see any shadow by the tree. Seems the focus is on the rock face. The horizon is out of focus, but so is the Moon out of focus. I don't think the Moon is in focus because I can't see any craters. Why is the cliff face lighted up? I don't think it is moonlight. It could be twilight from the setting Sun in the opposite region of the sky.

8-) I like the picture; and it looks as if the tree is being pushed over by old Luna! :lol2:

Blue Moon, Double Blue Moon, Super Moon, is this the new astronomical astrology?

Apart from purely artificial coincidence with the calandar, and orbital variation that is unobservable naked-eye, ther is absolutley no significance to these names, that are puffed up by the Medja, and I'm sad to say by proper astronomical sites like this one.

John

[quote=spoutnicko post_id=281037 time=1522224212]
first there is the shadow of the tree just behind it, like if the light source was just overhead. with sun and full moon, i see no other light source capable of projecting such a shadow.
[/quote]

update to my first reply, the shadow of the tree is not the shadow the tree, but just rocks, so forget this point...

in this case, the image seems to be a focus composite, which is ok

nicolas

i have some doubts about this being at least single shot image, or even a genuine image.

first there is the shadow of the tree just behind it, like if the light source was just overhead. with sun and full moon, i see no other light source capable of projecting such a shadow.
then there is the sharpness of the ground, which is good at the level of the tree, then bad farther away (at "horizon") due to depth of focus, and then good at the moon, ie at infinity. which does not make sense.

nicolas

Back In The Day, a blue Moon really was blue due to filtering by small particulates high in the atmosphere, as from a forest fire. Unlike that of the modern cheapened definition it was a rare, lovely, and unpredictable thing.

[url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180328.html] [img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_180328.jpg[/img] [size=150]Blue Moon Tree[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] Does an alignment like this occur only once in a blue moon? No, although it was during a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon]blue moon[/url] that this single-shot image was taken. During a full [url=https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/earths-moon/overview/]moon[/url] that happened to be the second of the month -- the situation that defines a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0fy1HeJv80]blue moon[/url] -- the photographer created the juxtaposition in late January by quickly moving around to find just the right spot to get the [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120102.html]background Moon[/url] superposed behind the arc of a [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170320.html]foreground tree[/url]. Unfortunately, in this case, there seemed no other way than getting bogged down in mud and resting the camera on a barbed-wire fence. The arc in the oak tree was previously created by hungry cows in [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Ferry,_California]Knight's Ferry[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California]California[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States]USA[/url]. Quirky [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150723.html]Moon-tree juxtaposition[/url]s like this can be created during any [url=https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-earth/Moon_phases_drawing.gif]full moon[/url] though, given enough [url=http://www.mqltv.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/o-CAT-COMPUTER-facebook-750x390.jpg]planning[/url] and time. Another opportunity will arise this weekend, coincidently during another [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040731.html]blue moon[/url]. Then, the [i]second[/i] blue moon in 2018 will occur, meaning that for the second month this year, two full moons will appear during a single month (moon-th). [url=https://www.obliquity.com/astro/blue-twolist.html]Double blue-moon[/url] years are [url=https://www.obliquity.com/astro/blue-two.html]relatively rare[/url], with the last occurring in 1999, and the next in 2037.


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