How...

Do you remember ‘How’ on the telly, back in the sixties? Jack Hargreaves, Fred Dinenage, Bunty and that mad professor chap with the sticky-up hair? The programme answered questions on all sorts of subjects and always started with the team saying ‘HOW’ and then raising their hands like red Indians. They always seemed on the verge of an argument to me.

Holly took these pictures a few evenings ago, in Wales, and it made me think of ‘How’? Yes, the moon really was that colour, I went out and checked.

‘HOW’

Fred - How can the moon look orange?

Mad Professor with sticky up hair - At times the moon can look blue, orange, or even red, and occasionally appears to be certain colours at special times of the year. You may have seen the harvest moon during the autumn when it can look very large and orange. There are two causes for the colours - the moon's path across the sky, and climatic conditions.

During certain times of the year, the moon will rise and set at different angles and sometimes the moon stays really low in the sky and never reaches an overhead position. This coupled with the atmosphere having more dust particles than usual, or the atmosphere containing a lot more cloud particles than usual, means that light becomes more scattered and it’s this that causes the moon to appear orange or red.

Jack – And around harvest time a lot of dust is kicked up into the air and harvest Moons are more frequent. But the moon can have an orange colour at any time of the year. Sometimes the moon appears orange even when it's directly overhead. This happens when there's a lot of dust, smoke, or pollution in the atmosphere and it’s the size of the dust particles that determines the colour.

Mad professor with the sticky up hair - The moon looking blue is much the same sort of thing. But other than the rare examples of the moon actually appearing blue - after volcanic eruptions or unusual weather conditions - a blue moon is actually an old farmer’s measurement, it refers to the second full moon that occurs in any calendar month. On average, there will be 41 months that have two full moons in every century. By that calculation 'once in a blue moon' means once every two-and-a-half years - I don’t know why farmers would be interested though.

Jack – It’s all to do with the right time for nature, like digging potatoes at midnight, keeps them more flavoursome. If we don’t stop all this pollution gubbins though, we are going to have real problems in the future with the climate, maybe even another ice age.

Bunty – Potatoes at midnight, another ice age, gubbins? I think you’ve spent too long down on the farm Jack - you’ve lost the vegetable plot!

Mad professor with the sticky up hair – Guffaw!

Fred – Yes, quite (nervous shuffling of papers... 'Oh God, not another argument. Last time it almost came to tomahawks). Cough, cough, The Harvest Moon is also known as the Wine Moon, the Singing Moon and the Elk Moon.

Bunty – And our old friends the Red Indians gave the full moon of each month a name; January – Wolf Moon, February – Ice Moon, March – Storm Moon, April – Rain Moon, May – Hare Moon, June – Rose Moon, July – Thunder Moon, August –Barley Moon, September - Harvest moon, October – Hunter’s Moon, November –Beaver Moon, and December – Cold Moon. No Loony Moon though I’m afraid Jack.

Mad professor with the sticky up hair – Guffaw!

Fred – Thanks, and that’s that… HOW! (phew!)

All – HOW!

… and I challenge you to say that in a deep voice without raising your right hand - I bet you have already!