[AstroNet] Blue moon, eclipse, 2012

[Kevin Govender]

This is in case you have any queries regarding the blue moon, eclipse or 
2012 doomsday.

Tomorrow night (New Year's Eve), on the LAST night of the FIRST decade 
of the new millennium, we will see a "blue moon" AND a partial lunar 
eclipse occur on the same night! Talk about a rare occurrence and 
coincidence, not to mention the poking of endless myths in Southern 
Africa about an eclipse being bad luck. Something even more scary to the 
average believer of doomsday myths is that the NEXT blue moon will occur 
in... wait for it... 2012! (if you haven't watched the movie or heard 
about 2012, some people say the world will end in 2012 - another 
ridiculous myth).

The 2012 idea is based on the fact that the Maya calendar ends in 2012 
so people say that means the world will end in 2012! Completely 
ridiculous but it's such a popular myth at the moment - especially with 
a Hollywood blockbuster movie about it doing the rounds! There's a good 
website mentioned below that shows why 2012 doomsday ideas like galactic 
alignments, breakaway continents, deadly solar storms and the myterious 
Planet X are all completely false.

The blue moon: an interesting confusion over the decades: Here we're 
using a "popular" definition of a blue moon which refers to a second 
full moon in the same month. This definition actually came about as a 
mistake in a 1946 issue of Sky and Telescope, but it was picked up by 
popular culture to the point where it's actually mentioned as a 
definition in the American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Co., 
4th edition, 2000).  The thing is that the moon actually does appear 
blue sometimes, although very rarely, specifically when there are a lot 
of small particles in the air like after a forest fire or volcanic 
eruption.

The eclipse myths are present in most South African cultures, commonly 
stating that eclipses bring bad luck. Actually, from an astronomical 
point of view, there's nothing to worry about. Eclipses are natural 
phenomena which occur every now and then. This partial lunar eclipse on 
new year's eve will occur when the moon moves into the shadow of the 
earth and we see an edge of the full moon go dark. This eclipse will be 
a small one (about 8% of the moon will be in shadow) and will be visible 
from all over South Africa between 20:52 and 21:53, with a maximum at 21:23.

Since this is also the end of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 
we're planning a major closing event in the astronomical town of 
Sutherland (home to the Southern African Large Telescope and South 
African Astronomical Observatory). Everything is going really well with 
the week long event and tomorrow there will be a new year's eve star 
party with portable telescopes in town, visits to the research 
telescopes, live music by local bands, kite flying for the kids, 
astronomy workshops for the interested ones, eclipse watching and much more.

Some websites for more information:

Blue moon: 
http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Blue_Moon_Rounds_Out_The_Decade_999.html
Eclipse: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/LEplot2001/LE2009Dec31P.pdf
International Year of Astronomy closing event: 
http://www.saao.ac.za/projects/YearEndFestival2009/YearEndFestival2009.html
2012 myth: 
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091106-2012-end-of-world-myths.html

Contact:
Kevin Govender (South African Astronomical Observatory)
0824878466