Tea at Trianon: The Supermoons and Blue Moon of 2024

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, January 14, 2024

The Supermoons and Blue Moon of 2024

From M Live:

The full moon is known as a supermoon when it becomes fully illuminated around the same time that it reaches perigee, or its closest point to Earth on its monthly orbit. This synchronism happens just a few times each year, according to EarthSky.org, and can cause the moon to appear quite a bit brighter in the sky.
There are also several “new supermoons” each year, occurring when the moon is in its new phase, or 0% illumination. These don’t receive the same kind of attention that full-moon supermoons do because new moons happen when the moon’s shadow side faces Earth, making them invisible to us.
Blue moons are even more rare than supermoons, but defining them can be a bit murky. Since the late 20th century, the term “blue moon” has been used to describe the second full moon landing within one calendar month. But more traditionally, the term blue moon applied only when an extra full moon fell within a single season — meaning spring, summer, fall or winter, as defined as the time between a solstice and an equinox. In the case of these so-called seasonal blue moons, the blue moon is actually the third of four full moons in one season (not the extra fourth moon). (Read more.)