Super freaky Supermoon

The full moon in September, taking place Tuesday night, stands out in not one, not two, not, three, but four categories. Are you ready for it?

The Tuesday moon is a supermoon, the annual Corn Moon, the annual Harvest Moon, and will involve a partial lunar eclipse.

A supermoon is known as such because it’s a full – or new – moon that comes closest to Earth, making it look larger than usual. The technical name is a perigee syzygy or a full Moon around perigee.

The harvest moon is the full moon nearest the autumn equinox (September 22 this year), when the angle of the moon’s orbit is most shallow relative to Earth’s horizon is at its minimum, causing the full moon to rise above the horizon much faster than usual. In the ‘old days’ before electricity, that meant more light in the evening for field workers to complete harvesting, hence the name.

Additionally, the September full moon was called the Corn Moon by the Algonquin tribes due to this being the time they reaped their crops that included corn.

Though the moon will be full (and large), the eclipse will step on its toes. The fullness is expected to hit around 9:35 p.m. local time, but the partial lunar eclipse will have already begun a couple of hours earlier and will hit its peak right around the same time, with less than 10 percent of the moon in full shadow. But within a couple of hours after that, the eclipse will have ended and the moon will have returned to full brightness.

So, keep an eye out earlier in the evening for the moon to rise in the east-northeast and give yourself a rare lunar visual treat.

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