Lift your head to the heavens tonight!  Take a look at the big, beautiful Harvest Moon tonight! It is one of 12 full moons that occur in a tropical year.  Depending on the year, the full Harvest Moon can occur anywhere from two weeks before the autumn equinox to two weeks after. The Harvest Moon is either the last full moon of the summer season, or the first full moon in autumn.

But these autumn full moons do have special characteristics related to the time of moonrise. Nature is awesome at giving us dusk-till-dawn moonlight, for several evenings in a row, around the time of the Harvest Moon.

The orange color of a moon near the horizon is a true physical effect. It stems from the fact that when you look toward the horizon, you’re looking through a greater thickness of Earth’s atmosphere than when you look up to the sky overhead.

 

That name probably came from Native Americans, the September Full Moon is Full Corn Moon and Barley Moon.  Maybe it came from the farmer throughout the Northern Hemisphere, on autumn evenings, as the Harvest Moon stay brighter longer allowing them to stay in the fields longer to in bringing in the crops.

Take your eyes to the sky tonight!