Blue Moon?

We got invited to a Blue Moon party Saturday night. Blue Moon beer had a promotional thing going, so the hosts had Blue Moon tshirts, etc. Pretty fun party. I was a little confused though.

A "Blue Moon", the second full moon of the month, actually happened in May, not June. The second full moon of May was on May 31. So, I was having a little mental conflict with the calculations there. Apparently, Blue Moon beer people were as well. Or were they?

I looked it up. These are Eastern Standard Times.
May 2, Full Flower Moon 6:09 am
May 31 Full Blue Moon 9:04 pm
June 30 Full Strawberry Moon 9:49 am.

Now, Blue Moon, being a Belgian White beer, maybe figured out that they should go by the moon phases in Belgium instead of the US. Which would have put the full moon on June 1 at 1:04 am. And then again on June 30 at 1:49 pm, Which would, of course, make the it a blue moon in June instead of May!!!!!

I went to bed last night, thinking I had solved the mystery.

Thanks to the Internet, however, I find that Blue Moon is actually created and brewed by the Molson Coors Brewing Company, in FREAKIN' COLORADO!!

More Internet work--seems that most of the places you go to look up moon phases post it in Greenwich Mean Time, which is, of course, a few hours ahead of us. Apparently that's the time all the calendar makers use too, since everything BUT the Old Farmer's Almanac site have things posted in GMT. So again, mystery solved.


Here's the NPR story that prompted me having such a bunch of confusion in my mind (copyright NPR):

Blue Moon on Thursday? Not So Fast

All Things Considered, May 30, 2007 · There is a prevailing myth about what a blue moon is. Thursday, May 31, will bring the second full moon of the month. But that does not constitute a blue moon, as is popularly believed.

Kelly Beatty, editor of Night Sky magazine and executive editor of Sky and Telescope, tells Robert Siegel that a blue moon actually refers to the phenomenon of having four full moons in a season, which ordinarily has three.

Beatty also acknowledged that his magazine had a hand in giving the misconception credence. Sky and Telescope magazine recently put out a press release explaining its role in perpetuating the myth. It read, in part:

Our 1946 writer, amateur astronomer James Hugh Pruett (1886-1955), made an incorrect assumption about how the term had been used in the Maine Farmers' Almanac, where it consistently referred to the third full moon in a three-month season containing four. (By this definition there is no blue moon in May or June 2007, and the next one happens in May 2008.)

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/moon/3304131.html for more interesting stuff