With A Wink The Full Moon Sets Over Grand Haven, photo by David W Behrens
I watched the full harvest moon set this morning over the Leland Harbor among some clouds, and then saw this photo that David of David W. Behrens Photography shared from Grand Haven, Michigan. Click through to see more pics from David!
The full harvest moon rises tonight at 7:21 PM, so I figured that I would share a bit about the Harvest Moon from a past post on Michigan in Pictures:
EarthSky.org has a nice article about the Harvest Moon that explains that for all its mystique, the Harvest Moon is just an ordinary full moon:
Still, you might think the Harvest Moon looks bigger or brighter or more orange. That’s because the Harvest Moon has such a powerful mystique. Many people look for it shortly after sunset around the time of full moon. After sunset around any full moon, the moon will always be near the horizon. It’ll just have risen. It’s the location of the moon near the horizon that causes the Harvest Moon – or any full moon – to look big and orange in color.
The orange color of a moon near the horizon is a true physical effect. It stems from the fact that – when you look toward the horizon – you are looking through a greater thickness of Earth’s atmosphere than when you gaze up and overhead. The atmosphere scatters blue light – that’s why the sky looks blue. The greater thickness of atmosphere in the direction of a horizon scatters blue light most effectively, but it lets red light pass through to your eyes. So a moon near the horizon takes on a yellow or orange or reddish hue.
…The shorter-than-usual time between moonrises around the full Harvest Moon means no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise for days in succession. In the days before tractor lights, the lamp of the Harvest Moon helped farmers to gather their crops, despite the diminishing daylight hours. As the sun’s light faded in the west, the moon would soon rise in the east to illuminate the fields throughout the night.
You can read on for more.
