Astronomy: Super Blood Wolf Moon
This upcoming Sunday's total eclipse will be interesting for those of us who RV to Star Parties and other astronomy related events. For this one you won't need a telescope. Viewing conditions for yo...
Forum Discussion
drsteve wrote:
I'm kinda amused by the trend of calling every celestial event by some fantastic sounding name, no matter how mundane it really is. The moon always looks red during a total lunar eclipse.
Not so mundane to me - there is actually some history to this particular name. This eclipse occurs at the point the moon is closest to the earth making it appear larger in the sky which is also called the perigee. AKA super moon
That makes the moon look extra close and extra bright – up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a full moon at its farthest point from Earth, known as the apogee.
This is the first of three supermoons in 2019. The others will be on Feb. 19 and March 21. Of these, the Feb. 19 full moon will be the closest and largest full supermoon of 2019.
Although the moon is in Earth's shadow, some sunlight still reaches the moon. The sunlight passes through Earth's atmosphere, which causes our atmosphere to filter out most of the blue light which makes the moon appear red to people on Earth.- AKA Blood moon.
"Wolf" moon. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, Native Americans called the January full moon the "wolf" moon because it appeared when wolves howled in hunger outside the villages.
The almanac said ancient peoples commonly tracked the seasons by following the lunar calendar (vs. today’s solar calendar).
For millennia, people across the world, including Native Americans, named the months after nature’s cues - it wasn't made up by members of an RV forum.
