Hunter's Moon rises tonight with Saturn close by
October's full moon peaks at 0412 GMT on Monday. Skywatchers can see the Hunter's Moon rise in the east on Sunday evening, with the planet Saturn shining nearby.
Symbolic image · Photo: John William Hammond / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped and resized)
October's full moon, known as the Hunter's Moon, will light up the sky overnight from Sunday to Monday. The astronomy site EarthSky and The Old Farmer's Almanac both put the full moon at 0412 GMT on Oct. 26, which is 12:12 a.m. EDT. The best time to watch is Sunday evening, when the moon rises over the eastern horizon.
The moon sits in the constellation Aries, with the planet Saturn the bright golden point of light next to it, EarthSky said. BBC Sky at Night Magazine said the moon has been passing Saturn since about Oct. 23, and both can be seen with the naked eye. This is not a supermoon; the Almanac gives that label to November's full moon.
The Hunter's Moon is the first full moon after the Harvest Moon, and its evening light once helped farmers bring in the last crops and hunters track game across bare fields before winter. It often looks larger and orange near the horizon, but that is an illusion: "The Hunter's Moon is just an ordinary full moon with a special path across our evening sky," EarthSky wrote.