Full moon - 31 st (blue Moon)

[Guest guest]

.....the last full moon that fell on Halloween was in 1958.

[Guest guest]

wow, that is before i was born - do you know when the last blue moon was on

halloween? <br><br>Today is an interesting day.

[Guest guest]

sorry I mistyped that... last full moon on Halloween was in 1955, not

58.<br><br>Blue moon info here...<br><a

href=http://rampages.onramp.net/~binder/Blumoon.html

target=new>http://rampages.onramp.net/~binder/Blumoon.html</a>

[Guest guest]

<<do you know when the last blue moon was on halloween?>><br><br>By

definition, every full moon on Haloween is a blue moon....Duh.<br><br>Ole

[Guest guest]

Rare blue moon tonight <br>Spooky cluster of

stars also will make appearance<br><br>David Perlman,

Chronicle Science Editor   Wednesday, October 31, 2001

<br>

<br><br>------\

<br><br>If rain doesn't dampen the parades of

trick-or-treaters tonight, they will see an unusual moon that's

been celebrated for centuries, plus a cluster of stars

of legendary spookiness. <br><br>Earth's shining

satellite tonight is called a blue moon, although when it

rises just after sunset it could look more like a fat

bright orange -- a jack- o'-lantern perhaps, turning

white as it climbs high in the sky, and fading away as

it sets toward sunrise. <br><br>According to Bing

Quock, the Planetarium director at the California

Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, what's so

unusual about a blue moon on Halloween is that it last

shone over California in 1944. And there won't be

another until the year 2020 -- time for a new generation

of costumed celebrants. <br><br>The blue moon was

originally defined by the Maine Farmer's Almanac in 1819 as

an extra full moon within any season. Later,

however, the respected publication Sky and Telescope

altered the almanac's definition and since then it has

come to mean the second full moon within a single

month. The first full moon this month was Oct. 2.

<br><br>No one knows for sure why this rare full moon is

called blue, but in Shakespeare's time, Quock believes,

people may have called it blue because they likened it

to the blue-green mold that marks some ripe cheeses.

<br><br>Perhaps the most famous mysterious words recited at

Halloween parties are those from Shakespeare's three

witches in "Macbeth": <br><br>"Round about the cauldron

go; <br><br>In the poison'd entrails throw.

<br><br>Toad, that under cold stone <br><br>Days and nights

hast thirty-one <br><br>Swelter'd venom sleeping got,

<br><br>Boil thou first i' the charmed pot. <br><br>Double,

double, toil and trouble, <br><br>Fire burn and cauldron

bubble." <br><br>But there are many mixtures of evil in

pre-Shakespeare Halloween legends, Quock notes. <br><br>Tonight,

for example, as the blue moon rises in the east, so

will the Pleiades, the "Seven Sisters," a cluster of

stars in the constellation Taurus the bull. (Actually,

there are about 3,000 stars in the Pleiades, not

seven). The cluster will rise about a half-hour after the

moon, and should move up the sky a little below and

about 25 degrees to the left of the moon, according to

Quock. <br><br>The ancient Celts celebrated the rise of

the Pleiades on the night between the autumnal

equinox and the winter solstice -- in other words, on

Halloween night. Their Druids lit candles and bonfires on

hilltops beneath the dark oak forests, and sacrificed

crops and animals to begin the "season of darkness and

cold." <br><br>In the year 834, the Catholic Church

declared All Saints' Day on what is now Nov. 1. The night

before was the eve of all those who had been hallowed,

or consecrated -- Allhallows Eve, or Halloween.

<br><br>Even earlier, according to some anthropologists, Mayan

groups believed that the Pleiades reigned supreme over

the darkness. At midnight each Oct. 31 when the star

cluster was overhead, Mayan priests atop their temple

would cut open a young boy's chest to remove his

beating heart. <br><br>Somehow, perhaps from that macabre

Mayan tradition, plus the original Allhallows Eve of

the Catholic Church and an ancient Aztec festival

presided over by the goddess known as "Lady of the Dead,"

comes the Mexican "Dia de los Muertos," whose annual

celebration also begins tonight. <br><br>The Day of the Dead,

celebrated according to Ricardo J. Salvador of Iowa State

University, marks a "traditional blend of ancient aboriginal

and introduced Christian features." It is ''a way of

recognizing the cycle of life and death that is human

existence, and ''it is not a morbid occasion but rather a

festive time.''

[Guest guest]

thanx for the math lesson, ouch (- you clearly have 31 fingers).