Blue moon is coming Saturday night to a sky near you
A Blue Moon is coming this weekend. And it's not the craft beer nor Amazon's new spaceship, both of which have appropriated the name.
No, its just a full moon with a colorful nickname. And here's the scoop on where that name came from and what it means:
Most seasons have three full moons. But once in a while, a season — like spring of this year — will have four full moons. And it's the third of those four that's called a blue moon.
The actual moment the moon will be full is Saturday at 5:11 p.m. ET, according to Space.com.
The more common definition of a "blue moon" is the second full moon in one calendar month, though some astronomy purists sniff at that definition, which is technically incorrect.
Even the venerable publication Sky & Telescope — in which the original "mistake" was made decades ago — said that "the second-full-moon-in-a-month (mis)interpretation is like a genie that can't be forced back into its bottle. But that's not necessarily a bad thing." Language is malleable, after all.
According to AccuWeather, seasonal blue moons aren't all that rare, occurring once every two or three years.
Of course, the moon won't appear blue. It'll be the same color it's always been. Blue-colored moons in photos are usually made using special blue camera filters or in a post-processing program such as PhotoShop, according to Earthsky.org.
AccuWeather also added that the weather may not cooperate for blue-moon viewing on Saturday night thanks to a sprawling storm system that will spread clouds over most of the western 2/3 of the nation. The best views should be in the southeastern United States.
Blue Moon is also the name of a song famously crooned by the Marcels back in the early 1960s, which you can sing along to here:
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Blue moon is coming Saturday night to a sky near you
