Harvest Moon

StarDate

The Moon has a lot going on tonight. For one thing, it’s full. And it’s the best-known full Moon of the year – the Harvest Moon. It’ll stage a minor eclipse that’ll be visible across almost all of the United States. And a couple of giant planets lurk near by – one of them especially close.

The Harvest Moon honor goes to the full Moon that’s closest to the fall equinox. The equinox is coming up on Sunday – just five days after the full Moon.

The lunar eclipse begins at 7:41 p.m. Central Daylight Time. That’s when the Moon makes contact with Earth’s outer shadow. But that part of the shadow is so faint that it’s hard to tell much difference.

A couple of hours later, the Moon will barely dip into the darker inner shadow. It’ll cover only a tiny fraction of the Moon, so it’ll look like something took a nibble from the disk. At least part of the eclipse will be visible from the entire United States except western Alaska.

Not long after the eclipse ends, the Moon will stage its own eclipse: It’ll pass directly in front of Neptune, briefly blocking the planet from view for most American skywatchers. Neptune’s too faint to see without binoculars or a telescope, so most of us won’t even notice it. We’ll have more about Neptune tomorrow.

And if all that lunar activity isn’t enough, the planet Saturn stands close to the Moon all night. It looks like a bright star – leading the Harvest Moon across the night sky.

Script by Damond Benningfield