Friday's full moon was the second one to rise during the month of August, following the full moon of Aug. 1.
This qualifies it as a blue moon, according to the popularly accepted (but incorrect) definition of the term.
"Blue moon" orginally referred to the third full moon in a season that has four full moons instead of the usual three.
But in 1946, a writer for "Sky and Telescope" magazine erroneously reported the second-full-moon-in-month meaning, and the definition stuck.
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