Blue Moon :: #lookingup in Madrid

I arrived in Madrid 4 days ago and all I have done so far, is spending time with my buddy, Alex 'Brutally Honest' Rotenberg, and I tried to make new Asian friends at the Casino Gran Via live Poker tables :-) Some 30 hours of cash game later, I have new friends ... and foes. Games are running scorching hot like the Madrid weather over here these days. NLH 1/3 and 2/5 for the sane, PLO 2/5 up to 5/10 for the insane. I have been insane :-D

We played until very late last night and, on my way home, I suddenly remembered that something very special was going on up there...

Palacio de Ciebles (Madrid) under the Blue Moon

Some photos

Some explanations

​Maybe you are familiar with the expression 'once in a blue moon'. This poetic phrase refers to something that does not happen often at all. By now, the term is used for a second full moon that occasionally appears during one same month. Commonly, we get one full moon every month but the moon does not care about our weird ways of counting days and months. The Moon takes 27.3 days to orbit Earth (not 28, not 29, not 30 and not 31 like the amount of days in our calendar months) but the lunar phase cycle (from new Moon to new Moon) is 29.5 days. The Moon must then 'catch up' on us for an extra 2.2 days since Earth is not sitting still and travels about 70 million km around the Sun during the time the Moon completes one orbit around Earth.

As a consequence of these discrepancies, sometimes there are two full moons in one month and the 'extra' full moon of the season is usually called 'Blue Moon'.

Last night's Blue Moon as seen from our Madrid home window <3

Yet, there is a little bit more to it. The most well-known definition of a Blue Moon is when there are two full moons in one month but a Blue Moon can be the only full moon in a month, like the one last night in August 2021. Detailed explanations below by @lowellobservatory .​

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LOWELL OBSERVATORY | Astronomy (@lowellobservatory)