Is the Harvest Moon bigger, or brighter or more colorful?īecause the moon’s orbit around Earth isn’t a perfect circle, the Harvest Moon’s distance from Earth – and apparent size in our sky – differs from year to year. Werburgh’s Church in Spondon, Derby, on October 1.
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captured the full Harvest Moon showing off the weathervane of St. So there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise. The narrow angle of the ecliptic means the moon rises noticeably farther north on the horizon from one night to the next. Why does this happen? Check out the illustrations below: In autumn, the ecliptic – marking the moon’s approximate path across our sky – makes a narrow angle with the evening horizon. The moon will rise during or near twilight on these nights, presenting dusk-till-dawn moonlight for several nights in a row around the time of the Harvest Moon. But it means that, in the nights after a full Harvest Moon, you’ll see the moon ascending in the east relatively soon after sunset. The difference between 50 minutes and 25 minutes might not seem like much. For instance, at Anchorage, Alaska ( 61 degrees north latitude) the moon will rise at nearly the same time for a week! The farther north you live, the greater the Harvest Moon effect. For mid-temperate latitudes, it rises only about 20 to 25 minutes later daily for several days before and after the full Harvest Moon.įor very high northern latitudes, there’s even less time between successive moonrises. But when a full moon happens close to an autumn equinox, the moon on the following nights rises closer to the time of sunset. On average, the full moon rises around sunset, and rises about 50 minutes later each day.
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Nature is particularly cooperative in giving us dusk-till-dawn moonlight, for several evenings in a row, around the time of the Harvest Moon. But these autumn full moons do have special characteristics related to the time of moonrise. In some ways, it’s like any other full moon name. By popular acclaim, most regard a Blue Moon as the second of two full moons in one calendar month. Therefore, some people refer to the third of these four full moons as a seasonal Blue Moon.Īctually, that definition of Blue Moon preceded the better known definition. Four full moons in one season is quite atypical. This time around, however, four full moons take place in one season: between the June solstice and September equinox. Most often, a season has three full moons. Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign. Help EarthSky keep showing you what’s going on in the sky. It last took place on March 28, 2021, and will next happen March 18, 2022. That’s the fourth moon of summer for the Northern Hemisphere, and the fourth winter full moon for the Southern Hemisphere.įor the Southern Hemisphere, the Harvest Moon always comes in March or early April.
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This year, the September full moon is the fourth of the season’s four full moons. The Harvest Moon is either the last full moon of the summer season, or the first full moon in autumn.
![harvest moon 2 harvest moon 2](https://gamefabrique.com/storage/screenshots/gbc/harvest-moon-2-gbc-03.png)
Thus, for the Northern Hemisphere, this full moon – the full moon closest to our autumn equinox – is our Harvest Moon.ĭepending on the year, the full Harvest Moon can occur anywhere from two weeks before the autumn equinox to two weeks after. The full moon falls less than two days earlier, on September 20. In 2021, the Northern Hemisphere autumn equinox comes on September 22. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we call the full moon closest to the autumn equinox the Harvest Moon. Thank you, Carlos! Harvest Moon and autumn equinox | Carlos Rios Martinez caught the Harvest Moon from La Bufa Hill in Zacatecas, Mexico, on September 30, 2020.