NavList:

It's bizarre what some of the social media posts (and dumber local weather people on "tv") are saying. But truth is, this one has not travelled. I have so far seen only three instances of people commenting on the "black moon". Your post here, Paul Saffo, and one from Bob King on Facebook (Bob is a regular and frequent writer for the S&T website, too) are examples of people who know astronomy "getting ahead of the game" ...trying to stop this nonsense. But I have seen only one person innocently sharing a link from a (very lame! poorly written) social media group. In short, I don't think it's a big problem.

So who started this crap? I believe the culprit is a low-grade science website that was originally spun off from the (now) rather tawdry space.com. It's livescience.com. They publish a lot of borderline junk, and you can read their article here:
   https://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/a-rare-black-moon-rises-this-weekend-what-is-it-and-what-can-you-see.

This specific article with its misleading assertion that this night of the "Black Moon" is the perfect time to look at the Milky Way was written by one Jamie Carter from Cardiff, UK. Phew... He's not a Dunce-American... He's a Dunce-Welshman.

Before we go any further, roughly five days centered on New Moon, each and every month, are indeed among the best times to view the Milky Way, but New Moon happens every month. And it also true that the "summer" Milky Way can be stunning and spectacular even on a night when the Moon is nearly full --so long as it hasn't risen yet! 

Where did this weird 'black moon' idea originate? The article claims "However, astronomers also use the term "black moon" to refer to the third new moon in a season of four new moons." Really?? Astronomers use this term?! Well, barely. The author can get away with this claim because of some discussions --by astronomy journalists who also have some credibility as astronomers-- years ago trying to explain the "real" origin of the term "blue moon". I remember thinking at the time, when they tried to justify a mistake from yet more decades earlier, that this was going to cause more trouble down the road. And here we are! Both "blue moon", in the modern social media sense, and (apparently) this expression "black moon" originate from an old and otherwise insignificant almanac published in Maine ages ago (not a nautical of astronomical almanac --just an almanac). But of course no astronomer worth his or her salt would suggest that this expression "black moon" has any value today!

Frank Reed