Harvest Moon

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ALL ABOUT THE HARVEST MOON

By Brittni Cebulak

A few weeks ago, upon looking outside about an hour before the rising sun of the absolute dawn, I caught a glimpse of a fantastic sight—a Harvest Moon.

What is a Harvest Moon?

In its simplest terms, it is the “full moon that occurs closest to the autumnal equinox.” Oftentimes, it is confused with the Hunter’s Moon—the first full moon subsequent to the Harvest Moon.

What sets this “Harvest Moon” apart from the regular moon phases?

The main difference is the color of the moon itself—the Harvest Moon is a brilliant, reddish orange color, while the moon most individuals are familiar with is a grayish, silvery white color. However, there are bigger differences that alienate the Harvest Moon than what can be seen with just the untrained eye alone.

The common full moon rises shortly after sunset and continues to rise fifty minutes later each day, while the difference between the consecutive times of the  moonrise of the Harvest Moon—and the Hunter’s Moon—is considerably shorter than usual. The Harvest Moon rises approximately thirty minutes later from one night to the next, making the interlude of darkness between sunset and moonrise much shorter than the typical full moon phase. This phenomenon is explained by the fact that the “ecliptic” (the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun) forms a narrow angle at the horizon in the evening during autumn. Therefore, even during the night, there is a minimal, yet effective, amount of light offered by the Harvest Moon. In fact, in the past, this autumn “Harvest Moon” was said to help farmers have enough visibility to have a longer amount of light available to be productive and bring in their crops from the fields. In the case of the “Hunter’s Moon,” hunters were offered some much needed light to track their prey.

How often does this so called “Harvest Moon” grace our skylines?

As previously mentioned, the harvest moon is the full moon closest to the “autumnal equinox.” Once every four years, this remarkable moon transpires in the Northern Hemisphere; it occurred around the date October 11, 2011 in the United States.

Interesting Facts:

• When the night of the Harvest Moon coincides with the night of the equinox, it is called a “Super Harvest Moon.” In 2010, the Harvest Moon occurred merely five and a half hours after the autumn equinox, which created the first “Super Harvest Moon” since 1991.  
• The Harvest Moon appears to be bigger, brighter, and more colorful than all of the other moon phases. Since the Harvest Moon is much nearer to the horizon than the original moon phases, the “warm” color of the moon is caused by the light from the moon passing through a more extensive amount of “atmospheric particles” shortly after it raises at the horizon. As a result, the “atmosphere scatters the bluish component of moonlight” (which is actually reflected white light from the sun), and allows the “reddish component” of the light to travel a “straighter path to one’s eyes. Consequently, all celestial bodies look  red when they are low in the sky.
• The Harvest Moon appears large in size because the human brain “perceives a low-hanging moon to be larger than one that is high in the sky.” This concept is referred to as “Moon Illusion,” and it can be witnessed with any full moon, as well as constellations. In short, an objected viewed low in the sky will appear larger than when it is high in the sky.

Alternative Names:

• “Wine Moon”
• “Singing Moon”
• “Blue Corn Moon”
• “Elk Call Moon”
• Other variations

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_moon