Normally the September Full Moon is known as the Harvest Moon, a time when traditionally farmers harvest their crops. The Harvest Moon is defined, however, as the full moon closest to the Autumn Equinox. The Full Moon of October 6 occurs 14.395 days after the Equinox, making it fourteen hours and thirty-nine minutes closer to the Equinox than the September Full Moon. Thus the October Full Moon is, technically, the Harvest Moon. This anomaly occurs about once every five years or so, or eighteen times between 1970 and 2050. So if the October Full Moon is the Harvest Moon then what is the September Full Moon, usually the Harvest Moon? Many sources, including the Old Farmers Almanac, a favorite of hoi polloi, are going with the Corn Moon, when corn is harvested (although not in the area where I am now) for September and the Harvest Moon for October. Not everyone is buying into the Harvest Moon in October business, however. The influential site astronomy.com is sticking with the Hunters Moon for October. The popular site timeanddate.com is going with both, calling the October Full Moon the Harvest/Hunters Moon. So what then is the November Full Moon? The Old Farmers Almanac (don’t confuse it with the Farmers Almanac) is going with the Beaver Moon for November, as is astronomy.com.
I am sticking with the Hunters Moon for October, the Old Farmers Almanac and others be damned. This is the time of the the year when as a young boy I always hunted small game and I always associate the October Moon with hunting. The Hunters Moon of October also always heralded the finest weather of the year; cool, crisp days and often below freezing temperatures at night. Of course with our changing climate this is often no longer the case. On October 6 this year the high at my current location was 77ºF with a low of 56ºF, temperatures not traditionally associated with October.
Whatever it is called, the October Full Moon was a doozy. The perigee, when the moon comes closest to the earth in 2025, occurred just two days after the Full Moon, on October 8 at 8:38 a.m. At this time the moon was a mere 223,581 miles from Earth. The apogee, the farthest the moon gets from earth, can be up to 252,088 miles, with an average distance between the Earth and the Moon of 238,855 miles. This perigee will result in the largest and brightest Super Moon of the year, about 7–8% larger in diameter and 15–16% brighter than the average full moon.
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| The Full Moon of October just peeked above the Alleghanies at 6:42 pm and by 6:45was about halfway up. |
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| The October Full Moon cleared the Alleghanies at 6:48 pm |
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| October Full Moon over the Alleghanies |
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October Full Moon over the Alleghanies
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October Full Moon over the Alleghanies
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October Full Moon over the Alleghanies
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| I prepared some Moon Water by leaving fresh spring water out all night to absorb moonlight. The next morning I used the Moon Water to make Goldenrod tisane. I had collected the goldenrod leaves ten days earlier. I am still buzzing off this stuff! |
