Where will YOU be when the Super-Duper-Moon appears?

The full moon of June 23 will be the largest full moon of 2013. Some folks, (but not astronomers) refer to the circumstance of this kind of full moon as a….. supermoon.

At 4:oo a.m. PDT in San Diego (1100 GMT), the satellite will be at its closest distance from earth in all of 2013, 221,824 miles (356,991 km). 32 minutes later, the moon will turn full. This combination is what makes a….. supermoon.

One effect will be on the tides. High tide will be slightly higher (a few inches) and low tide equally lower than average. This situation will last for the next two or three days.

Astronomers call this phenomena a perigee full moon. “Perigee” means the closest point an orbiting body reaches to the object it is in orbit around. So if this is a perigee full moon, what is a…. supermoon?

Turns out , it is not an astronomical term, instead, it’s astrological. Richard Nolle is an astrologer who says he made up the term in 1979. His definition is “…a new or full moon which occurs with the moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, Earth, moon and sun are all in a line, with moon in its nearest approach to Earth.”

With this meaning established, we find that each year there are an average of five supermoons. However, our upcoming June supermoon is a “super-duper-moon”, (I’ll take credit for this term), in that it’s the most super supermoon of the entire year. The next time we’ll have such a close encounter with the moon during its full phase will be the super-duper-moon of August 10, 2014. At that time, next year, the moon will be only about 3 miles closer than it will be this month.

A year later, September 28, 2015 we’ll have another super-duper even closer, 221,753 miles (356,877 kilometers) and still nearer the next year, on November 14, 2016 (221,524 miles/356,509 kilometers). There won’t be another closer full moon after that for 18 years. So where will YOU be for the super-duper-moon of November 25, 2034?