Time to gaze at the ‘Black Moon’ in Hyderabad

Essentially, the term Black Moon is used when there are more than one new moon in a month and December happens to have one.

Hyderabad: Time has come for the casual star gazer and amateur astronomers in Hyderabad to look-up at the December night sky and spot the Black Moon! Yes, you heard it right! It’s not the typical idiom of ‘Once in a Blue Moon’ but it is the foreboding sounding the Black Moon, which will be visible across the chilly Hyderabadi sky in the coming two-days.

“Yes this is a Black moon is quite rare. Usually, two New Moons (Amavasya) occur in a single calendar month. The second New Moon (Amavasya) is called Black Moon. And, similarly, if two Full Moon (Purnima) occur in one single Month then the Second Moon is called Blue Moon,” explains founder secretary, Planetary Society of India (PSI), Raghunandan Kumar.

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In the yearly 2024 calendar, there are two new Moon Days (Amavasya) in the month of December 2024 i.e. 11:51 am on Dec 1, 2024 and at 3:57 am on December 31, 2024, the noted amateur astronomer from Hyderabad, said.

Essentially, the term Black Moon is used when there are more than one new moon in a month and December happens to have one.

The Black Moons are quite rare events because of the cycle of the Moon and the time it takes to go through its different phases. Based on calculations, approximately, once in every two and half years, there will be a month with two new moons and the second new moon is often referred to as the black moon.

Amateur astronomers also pointed out that Black moons are also good for stargazers as it means darker skies, which allows them to checkout celestial bodies like galaxies that are more farther and cluster of starts that are not seen easily.