The Hunter's Moon: Big, Bright, Hard to Miss

When I wrote my fall sky guide a couple of weeks ago — Look Up: Virginia's Night Sky Between Now and New Year's — I gave this moon exactly one line: "Big, bright, hard to miss."

It deserves better than one line. So here it is, getting a post of its own.

The show is Sunday evening.

The Hunter's Moon reaches its peak at 12:12 a.m. on Monday, October 26 — but you don't have to be awake at 12:12 to see it, and you don't need a telescope. The moment that matters is Sunday evening, right around sunset, a little after six here in Virginia. Face east. The moon will come up over the horizon already looking full, and low in the sky it does the two things that make people pull the car over: it turns orange, and it looks enormous.

The orange is the air itself. Low on the horizon, you're looking at moonlight through the thickest part of the atmosphere, and the blue gets scattered out of it before it ever reaches you. The enormous is your own brain. Put the moon next to trees and rooftops and your mind swears it's bigger than the same moon riding overhead later that night. It isn't. Nobody's brain believes that, including mine — and honestly, the illusion is half the fun.

Why "hunter"?

This is the full moon that follows the Harvest Moon, and the old names tell the story of the season in order. First the harvest came in, and the fields were left bare. Then the leaves came down and the brush thinned out. The deer and the other game were easier to spot in open country, and fat from a summer of eating. And this moon has a particular habit: it rises right around sunset several nights in a row, so the light never quite quits at the end of the day. For folks who hunted to put meat away for winter, that extra light in the fields made the difference. They named the moon for what it made possible.

Most of us aren't hunting to get through the winter anymore. But the moon keeps the same schedule, and it still turns an ordinary Sunday evening into something worth standing in the yard for.

What else to look for

Saturday and Sunday night, the bright "star" keeping company with the moon is Saturn. You don't need a telescope to spot it, though binoculars will sharpen it up. And if you're back out Tuesday or Wednesday night, the now-shrinking moon will be passing by the Pleiades — that little cluster of stars that looks like a tiny dipper.

This is also only the opening act of the fall sky. Early November brings the Taurid fireballs, and on November 24 the Beaver Moon rises — a supermoon, a little bigger and brighter than usual. The whole season's calendar, start to finish, is in the fall sky guide. And around here, this moon opens Halloween week: the Countdown to Halloween — five haunted houses in five nights — starts Tuesday evening on this blog.

What to bring

The same two things I recommended in the guide, because they're still the two things that earn their place.

The first is the National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky, 2nd Edition — easy to read on the couch and still useful out in the yard. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1426220154?tag=jasontickleli-20

The second is a red flashlight. Your eyes need 20 to 30 minutes to fully adjust to the dark, and one blast of white light — a phone, a regular flashlight — resets the clock to zero. Red light lets you read your book and find your chair without ruining your night vision. Here's an inexpensive rechargeable one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFHNLNXM?tag=jasontickleli-20

Sunday evening. Face east, around sunset. Big, bright, hard to miss — I undersold it the first time.

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