Skygazers, get ready to head outside and spot the supermoon, coming in October.
NASA says that a supermoon is any moon within 90% of perigee, which occurs when the moon is closest to Earth. During this time, the moon is approximately 226,000 miles away from our planet, roughly 25,000 miles closer than when it is in apogee. The full moon appears on Oct. 6, and you shouldn’t have any trouble seeing it. It’ll be the first of four consecutive supermoons, one each month, as the moon continues its elliptical orbit around Earth.
The benefit for us on Earth is that the moon will appear bigger and brighter than usual. This is the best time to view it outside of a lunar eclipse and the subsequent blood moon.
The moon will appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a micro moon.
The moon will rise around sunset on Oct. 6, reaching peak illumination at 11:47 p.m. ET. It’ll be the brightest thing in the sky, and you won’t need any help from a magnification device to see it. However, you should probably bring something if you intend to use this opportunity to take some memorable moon photos. The only thing that’ll obscure your view of it is cloud cover.
If you can’t make it outside on Oct. 6, the moon will remain mostly full from Oct. 4 through Oct. 9, so there are plenty of chances to see it.
October’s full moon also has the distinction of being the harvest moon. Typically, September and October share this distinction depending on which month has the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. Thanks to full moons occurring so early in the month right now, that distinction goes to October. During years where September gets the name, October’s full moon is referred to as the hunter’s moon.