Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
2010x1

Did you miss the one-day special, PICAXE-128X3 - Based on a PIC30F, 512KB Program Memory, 128KB Ram, USB OTG and Ethernet, 6 UART, 5 PWM, 120MIPS using 80MHz clock, with cashback and a free hot hatch back ?

Oh well, happy new year ( though still 8+ hours to go in the UK ).
 

elios

Senior Member
Happy New Year guys.

Hope you have all set resolutions for the New Year... which reminds me....

Cheers all

-Liam Beale
 

westaust55

Moderator
How many knew it was a Blue Moon on New Years Eve and Day.
First Blue moon for a few years and rare to have one on New Years Eve and/or Day
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
Rare and even rarer to fall on those days, but whether a Blue Moon or not depends upon whether one follows the old definitions or the more modern definition. The new definition of "two full moons in the same month" seems to have only really taken hold since the 1980's. The older definition is "the third full moon in a season with four full moons", before that, it was an ecclesiastical issue and times when the moon appeared visibly blue.

Having a Blue Moon (any) and a leap second at the same time is even rarer.
 
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Dippy

Moderator
Coincidentally a mate of mine mentioned it yesterday.

I always thought 'Blue Moon' defined the probablity of someone reading a Data Sheet :)
 

Lez T

Member
H, this was the first year since 1990 that we have had 13 full moons in the same year, and this will not happen again until 2028. So the wife who knows about these things has told me.
Lez.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
First time since 1990 a Blue Moon has fallen on new year but 13 full moons a year happens about once every 2.5 years.

It's a 'Double Blue Moon' this year if in the right part of the world in March. February can never have a Blue Moon but can have no full moon which may be the case this year. Haven't checked that, but no full moon in February could be called a more true "once in a blue moon" event :)

It should be possible to write a PICAXE 'Blue Moon Prediction' program, but time zone, needing accurate base point and cycle time accuracy ( Moon and Earth ) will complicate things.
 

Dippy

Moderator
Gosh! Poor old Google is getting a pasting today ain't it!

Can't you measure the distance from earth to Moon with one of those U/sonic sensors?
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
Best I've come up with so far ...

2009-12-31 Thu, 31st of Dec 2009
2010-03-30 Tue, 30th of Mar 2010
2012-09-30 Sun, 30th of Sep 2012
2015-07-31 Fri, 31st of Jly 2015
2018-01-31 Wed, 31st of Jan 2018
2018-03-31 Sat, 31st of Mar 2018
2020-10-31 Sat, 31st of Oct 2020
2023-08-31 Thu, 31st of Aug 2023
2026-05-31 Sun, 31st of May 2026
2028-12-30 Sat, 30th of Dec 2028

That seems to have some creep forward as I don't have an accurate base point and run the moon phase too fast.

Quite a tough one calculating when a two-in-a-month full moon will happen so I don't envy ye monks of olde trying to predict any lunar event. As a 'point event' it depends entirely on which time zone one is in; BST / DST will affect some dates pulling that 'point event' into the previous month if measured with local time.

Reminds me of all those Millennium Countdown Clocks they set going in the middle of Summer which were out by an hour ( mostly year and an hour ). And again we have some of the media noting the passing December as the end of this century's decade.

Glad I decided against setting "don't be pedantic" as a resolution :)
 

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