A Hazy Harvest Moon

A Hazy Harvest Moon

Image Credit &
Copyright:

Petr Horálek /
Institute of Physics in Opava

Explanation:

For northern hemisphere dwellers, September’s Full Moon was
the Harvest Moon.

On September 17/18 the sunlit lunar nearside passed into shadow, just
grazing Earth’s umbra, the planet’s dark, central shadow cone, in a
partial lunar eclipse.

Over the two and half hours before dawn
a camera fixed to a tripod
was used to record this
series of exposures
as the eclipsed Harvest Moon set behind Spiš Castle
in the hazy morning sky over eastern Slovakia.

Famed in festival, story, and song,
Harvest Moon is just the traditional name of the full moon nearest the
autumnal
equinox.

According to lore the name is a fitting one.

Despite the diminishing daylight hours as the
growing season
drew to a close, farmers could harvest crops by the light of a full moon
shining on
from dusk to dawn.

This September’s Harvest Moon was also known to some as a supermoon,
a term becoming a traditional name for a
full moon near perigee.