Here’s the moon, at the phase in which it appeared on the night of April 30-May 1, 2013. If you looked for the moon tonight, you would not find it in the evening sky. The moon reaches the last quarter phase today (May 2, 2013) at 11:14 UTC. A last quarter moon rises around midnight and appears exactly half-illuminated as seen from Earth. After today, the moon will be in a waning crescent phase and visible in the sky only after midnight.
This moon looks blue, but photographer and artist VegaStar Carpentier added the blue color.
What people commonly call a Blue Moon doesn’t refer to color at all. Instead, Blue Moon just a name for the moon. In recent years, the most popular defintion of Blue Moon is that it is the second of two full moons to occur in the same calendar month.
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