The Blue Moon

    

     Blue Moon is a term used the second full moon of the calendar month.  Why everybody call this way?

     August 2012 is a month with two full moons and by popular acclaim, this means it’s a Blue Moon month, it is not literally the moon turns into blue, but just a name only.  The first full moon was on August 1st and the second moon this August 31, 2012.

     The time between one full moon and the next is closer to the length of the calendar month. So, the only time one month can have to full moons is when the first moon happens in the first few days of the month. This happens every 2-3 years, so these sorts of Blue Moon come about that often.

      Can there be two blue moons in a single calendar year? Yes, it has happened in 1999. There were two full moons in January and two full moons in March and no full moon in February. So both January and March had blue moons.

      The next year of double blue moons is coming in 2018.

AUGUST 2012 METEOR SHOWER

The Perseids have been observed by humans for about 2000 years, with the earliest knowledge of their existence emerging from the Far East. It is one of the finest meteor showers to observe, producing up to 60-100 bright, fast, and colorful meteors per hour during their peak. This annual meteor shower is active from July 23 through August 22, and usually peaks on August 11 and 12.

Perseids is extremely consistent in its timing and can potentially be observable for several weeks in the summer sky, conditional on your whereabouts, lighting conditions, and weather. Meteor showers are commonly named after their radiant point, the perspective point in the sky from which the meteors appear to come from. In the case of Perseids, it is named after the constellation Perseus, which is positioned in approximately the same point in which the Perseids meteor shower appears to originate from.

While this summer spectacular appears to radiate from a constellation, they are actually caused by the Earth passing through the dust particles of the comet Swift-Tuttle. Each summer, Earth passes into a trail of dust left by this comet, and as a result, all the dust and debris burning up in our atmosphere, travelling at a very fast 132,000 miles per second (59 km/s), produces the spectacle known as the Perseids meteor shower, or what are popularly recognized as “shooting stars”. There's no danger to sky watchers, though. The fragile grains disintegrate long before they reach the ground.

While the meteors are certainly bright, they are typically not much larger than a grain of sand. However, as they travel at immense speeds, these tiny particles put on an impressive show. Due to the way the comet’s orbit is tilted, dust from the Swift-Tuttle falls on Earth’s northern hemisphere. Unfortunately, this leads to extremely low visibility for those in Australia, New Zealand, and portions of South America.

In 2012, the waning crescent moon occurring on August 12 will not have a negative impact on the visibility of the Perseids. Due to the lack of bright moonlight, the fainter meteors will not be concealed from view. It is advisable to observe the meteor shower during the predawn hours on the mornings of August 11, 12, and 13. With up to 60-100 meteors per hour predicted, observers may catch plenty of bright meteors streaking along in the light of the moon.