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Did anyone see it?


mogs
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No one in France will have seen the red bit of the combination since this is caused by a lunar eclipse - which ran from the Western USA to Asia - but not Europe.

Just a rather hazy view of the moon, which may or may not have been bigger and or brighter than usual, based on a purely subjective view.

Amazing how the world can get wound up about something of little consequence.

Bah. Humbug - and all that.
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Sorry Andy, but I disagree.

Nature, science, and events involving nature, planets, and animals are fascinating. For me anyway and plenty of others too. The moon and it's cycle involves animals, plants, the sea and humans if you take into account different cultures. I know we wouldn't have seen the red part, but even so!

We all have our own interests. What are yours?

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My interests are in science Mogs and I am afraid this event was for Europeans an overhyped non-event.

As you say the blood red element did not occur over Europe, but a lunar eclipse is something worth seeing. There was one while I was in Germany - probably 15-20 years ago now - and interesting it was.

So down to the European bit:

Blue moon - well these by definition occur once in a blue moon. But what is it really? A full moon that occurs for a second time in a month. So that is really interesting, except that a month is a man made construct and it took a couple of millennia to get the approximation of months to fit with solar cycles. That is why we have a mismatch of months with 31 days (most likely to have a blue moon), 30 days (less likely to have a blue moon) and 29 and 28 days. The moon circles the Earth at a predictable rate and every 28-29 days there will be a full moon. We treat 2 of these in our artificial construct of months as something special, but it's not. We might just as well drop months and call today for example Earthdate 201833 (day 33 of 2018) and blue moons would instantly disappear.

So we are left with the fact that the moon is at its closest approach to the Earth which we perceive as a bigger and brighter moon. Except that most of us don't and couldn't. If it hadn't been plastered across the media, how many people would have known or noticed that it was bigger and brighter?

As you found the impact of atmospheric conditions on how bright it is or even if you can see it at all is far more important than how close it is. Its closeness is of interest to those scientists looking at gravitational effects - beyond that it is just media hype - and the lunartics fell for it.
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  • 2 years later...
Yes, very beautiful for a few nights now.  In fact, I nearly posted about it.  I think what has emphasised its beauty is that the night sky is actually still very light after the moon has risen.  So to see this full orange-coloured moon against a lightish background was very special.

According to the British media, this is called a "buck moon" because it's when deer grow their horns!  But I think that is just the usual media exaggeration.

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