From James Spann
Full Moon Tonight
The full Moon rises at sunset and is visible all night. It is the first of 4 super moons in 2024. (Mon 08/19/2024, Tue 09/17/2024, Thu 10/17/2024, and Fri 11/15/2024)
It earns the “super label” because it reaches full phase within a few days of perigee, the closest point in the Moon’s not-so-circular orbit. This makes it appear about 7% larger in the sky than average (hardly perceptible) but about 30% brighter (should be perceptible).
The best time to view the super moon is around sunset as the Moon is rising. This is because the Moon appears even bigger because your eye has the horizon, along with trees and buildings, to compare it with.
The moon will rise tonight at 7:47p CT in Birmingham.
You may have heard August’s full moon called the “sturgeon moon”, the native American name assigned to it by the Old Farmers Almanac. But names for full moons are as diverse as the native peoples and places they live.
Others include:
Blackberry or berry moon: Ojibwe (Great Lakes region)
Black cherry: Assiniboine (northern plains)
Summer moon: Comanche (southern plains)
Dry moon: Catawba (South Carolina)
End of Fruit Month moon or drying up moon: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (North Carolina)
Corn moon: Stockbridge-Munsee (Wisconsin), and Oneida (upstate New York & Great Lakes region)
Hot moon: Tunica-Biloxi (Louisiana)
Geese shedding their feathers moon: Arapaho (great plains)
Courting moon: Choctaw (Mississippi and Louisiana
Moon young ducks begin to fly: Cree (northern plains of Canada)
The attached photo was taken early this morning from Dean Baucom in Athens.
