Super Blue Moon Gets A Visit From Saturn: How To See It In MD

MARYLAND — Sky conditions over Maryland may not cooperate overnight Wednesday for the supermoon — also a blue moon, or the second full moon of the month.

And it gets even better. Saturn will join the cosmic show, giving its best and brightest views of the year.

The National Weather Service weather forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies over Maryland.

To see the 99 percent illuminated blue supermoon, look east shortly after sunset Wednesday. Moonrise is at 7:53 p.m. EDT, and the moon will be highest in the sky at about 12:25 a.m., and low in the western sky at moonset Thursday at 5:41 a. m.

Found at about 5 degrees to the upper right of the moon at moonrise, Saturn will appear to circle clockwise around the moon over the course of the night. Earth passed between Saturn and the sun on Sunday, bringing the planet to what’s called opposition.

At 222,043 miles from Earth, the moon will be the closest, biggest and brightest full moon of 2023, and the third of four consecutive supermoons. For perspective, the blue supermoon moon will be about 1,000 miles closer to Earth than the Aug. 1 full sturgeon supermoon.

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The 2023 string of four supermoons began with the full buck moon in July, and there will be another one on Sept. 29, the last of the year, with the full harvest moon supermoon.

One might think a string of supermoons is rare, according to NASA, but they’d be wrong, Geoff Chester, of the U.S. Naval Observatory, said of the three consecutive supermoons in 2013.

“Generally speaking, full moons occur near perigee every 13 months and 18 days, so it’s not all that unusual,” he said.

Four consecutive supermoons are expected in 2024 as well, on Aug. 19, Sept. 18, Oct. 17 and Nov. 15.

Blue moons and supermoons coincide every decade or so, and it won’t occur again until 2037, according to NASA. The last time it happened was in 2018.

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There are two kinds of blue moons — monthly and seasonal. The Aug. 30 full moon is the former.

In astronomy, a season refers to the time between a solstice and equinox. Spring, summer, fall and winter all are three months long, and usually have only three full moons, occurring 30 days apart. A seasonal blue moon is the third full moon of an astronomical season that has four blue moons, according to NASA.

The moon doesn’t turn blue, except in some rare circumstances, according to NASA.

“When a blue-colored moon happens, the blue color is the result of water droplets in the air, certain types of clouds, or particles thrown into the atmosphere by natural catastrophes, such as volcanic ash and smoke,” NASA said.

Later in September, you may start to see a few Taurid meteors flying around. The long-running meteor shower starts around Sept. 28 and continues through early December.

Fall meteor showers kick back up after the autumnal equinox with the Draconids, peaking on Oct. 8-9, and the Orionids, peaking Oct. 21-22.