Super Blue Moon Eclipse, King Tides– a Great Day for Photographers.

This morning, we experienced the second full moon of the month– also known as a “Blue Moon”.  No, the moon isn’t actually blue, it’s just a rare event as lunar cycles are 29.5 days, meaning you’d need a full moon on the 1st or 2nd of the month to get a Blue Moon.  To add to the cool-factor, this was also a Supermoon, meaning the moon was one of the closest distances to earth, making it appear larger than normal (the moon rotates on a slight oval-shape, rather than a perfect circle).  “But wait, there’s more!”– to top it all off, at 2:51am a lunar eclipse began as the earths shadow began to cover the surface of our only natural satellite, causing a full eclipse to begin at 4:51am, peak at 5:29am, and close at 6:07am, with the full event ending as the moon set 6:55am.

The Last Super Blue Moon Eclipse was 35 years ago, and the next one won’t be until the year 2037!

But the day was far from over for photogs.  With tides reaching 6.7 feet at 8:23am, we saw some of the highest tides this year.  We have a couple of days this year with truly monster high tides two upcoming days with 6.9ft high tides, with the next one not happening until July 12th, and the final one on August 10th.  At 3:33pm today, you can also witness some of the lowest tides this year, clocking in at -1.6ft below the mean tide.

If you missed the high tide peak today, fret not– we will still have a 6.5ft high tide tomorrow at 9:10am if you want to grab some cool photos of docks pointing upwards!

As always, if you have a dock that is an older build, you can weigh it down by putting garbage cans filled with water on it so that it doesn’t disconnect from its pilings.

Did you get good photos of either the lunar eclipse or the giant tides?


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About Mike Glenn

Mike is the founder and publisher of Save Newport and Chair of Government Relations for the Elks Lodge. He writes, shoots photos, and edits, but much of the time, he's just "the IT guy". He can be reached at: Google+, Facebook, or via email, at michael.glenn@devion.com