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This week’s full Hunter’s Moon will be the brightest supermoon of the year
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This week’s full Hunter’s Moon will be the brightest supermoon of the year

Skywatchers have been in for a treat these late summer and fall months. Our rare October comet continues to grace the sky this week, visible in the west just after sunset.

And our full Hunter’s Moon technically occurs on Thursday, but will appear Wednesday through Friday this week. The bonus is that it won’t be just any supermoon, but the brightest of four consecutive supermoons we can enjoy this year.

This is our third supermoon – which looks slightly larger to the human eye than regular moons – that we have experienced in a row. Our last supermoon of the year will be in November.

This month’s full moon is called the Hunter’s Moon because it comes after September’s Harvest Moon. It has had this name since the 18th century, a NASA skywatching column explains.

“According to the Farmer’s Almanac, now that the leaves are falling and the deer are fattened, it’s time to hunt,” the NASA piece says. “As the harvesters have harvested the fields, hunters can easily see the animals that have come out to gather (and the foxes that have come out to hunt them).”

This week’s moon will officially be full at 7:26 a.m. Thursday morning. We will see it rise as a full moon later that evening.

Native American tribes have had other names for our full moons over the centuries. October’s moon is also known as the Travel Moon, the Dying Grass Moon or the Sanguine or Blood Moon.