The Hunter’s Moon is nothing short of ‘Super’ over Shelter Island
The Hunter’s Moon, which is also a Super Moon, has been illuminating our evenings and nights for the past couple of days.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac says it’s known as the Hunter’s Moon “because it signaled the time to go hunting in preparation for the cold winter ahead. Animals are beginning to fatten up ahead of winter, and since the farmers had recently cleaned out their fields under the Harvest Moon, hunters could easily see the deer and other animals that had come out to root through the remaining scraps, as well as the foxes and wolves that had come out to prey on them.”
It receives the designation as “Super” because, according to Space.com, super moons are full moons that seem, to our eyes, to be larger than usual, because “the full moon can appear up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than when it is at its farthest from Earth. That’s because it coincides with the moon’s arrival at perigee, the closest point to Earth in its orbit.”
The moon will appear full, NASA says, through Friday morning. So even if you’re not a hunter (or an Old Farmer) you have a front row seat to one of the most magnificent celestial productions of the autumn.
