Sturgeon Moon 2025: What makes August's full moon a special 2-night affair
In a rare skywatching treat, you can see August's full Sturgeon Moon rise soon after sunset on both Saturday, Aug. 9 and Sunday, Aug. 10.
A full moon will rise this weekend — but, unlike most, there will be two opportunities to see it appear on the eastern horizon at dusk.
The Sturgeon Moon will officially reach its full moon phase at 3:55 a.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 9, which will create opportunities for those in North America to see the full moon rise twice in successive evenings.
The best time to see a full moon rise is just after sunset, typically on the day it officially becomes full. Not only is the full moon 100% illuminated then, but it also appears in the eastern sky when it's just dark enough for the moon to be easily visible while the landscape in front of it is still bathed in the light of dusk.
However, there are occasional months when two successive evenings can deliver similarly impressive full moonrises.
When the full moon occurs during the night, both the evening before and the evening after can offer nearly identical views, but only at certain times of the year. Because the moon orbits Earth every 29 days and there are 24 hours in a day, it rises on average 50 minutes later each day.
However, that's not true in August, when the full moon lies low in the southern sky as seen from mid-northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. As it's far south of the celestial equator, the full moon rises at a shallow angle to the horizon and stays in the night sky for a shorter time, causing the time difference between moonrises to shrink to around 30 minutes.
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