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The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°).P. Kenneth, Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac: A Revision to the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, (Mill Valley: University Science Books, 1992), p. 478. This means that the lunar hemisphere facing Earth—the near side—is completely sunlit and appears as an approximately circular disk. The full moon occurs roughly once a month.
The time interval between a full moon and the next repetition of the same phase, a synodic month, averages about 29.53 days. Because of irregularities in the moon's orbit, the new and full moons may fall up to thirteen hours either side of their mean. If the calendar date is not locally determined through observation of the new moon at the beginning of the month there is the potential for a further twelve hours difference depending on the time zone. Potential discrepancies also arise from whether the calendar day is considered to begin in the evening or at midnight. It is normal for the full moon to fall on the fourteenth or the fifteenth of the month according to whether the start of the month is reckoned from the appearance of the new moon or from the conjunction.
Culturally and spiritually significant across many societies, full moons are associated with festivals such as Vesak in Buddhism and various Purnima observances in Hinduism. Many traditions have named specific full moons—like the harvest moon or hunter’s moon—and linked them to seasonal or agricultural events. Folklore has associated full moons with insomnia, madness, and supernatural events, though scientific studies have not found consistent evidence of behavioral effects. In modern times, terms like “blood moon” and “blue moon” have entered popular use, often referring to lunar eclipses or rare lunar events.
A will also exhibit variations depending on the intercalation system used. Because a calendar month consists of a Natural number of days, a month in a lunar calendar may be either 29 or 30 days long.
Many list full moons not only by date, but also by their exact time, usually in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Typical monthly that include lunar phases may be offset by one day when prepared for a different time zone.
The full moon is generally a suboptimal time for astronomical observation of the Moon because shadows vanish. It is a poor time for other observations because the bright moonlight by the Moon, amplified by the opposition surge, then skyglow many stars.
Each phase is also described in accordance to its position on the full 29.5-day cycle. The eight phases of the moon in order:
The age and apparent size of the full moon vary in a cycle of just under 14 , which has been referred to as a full moon cycle.
In Arabic, badr (بدر ) means 'full moon', but it is often translated as 'white moon', referring to The White Days, the three days when the full moon is celebrated.
Full moons are traditionally associated with insomnia (inability to sleep), insanity (hence the terms lunacy and lunatic) and various "magical phenomena" such as lycanthropy. Psychologists, however, have found that there is no strong evidence for effects on human behavior around the time of a full moon. They find that studies are generally not consistent, with some showing a positive effect and others showing a negative effect. In one instance, the 23 December 2000 issue of the British Medical Journal published two studies on dog bite admission to hospitals in England and Australia. The study of the Bradford Royal Infirmary found that dog bites were twice as common during a full moon, whereas the study conducted by the public hospitals in Australia found that they were less likely.
The symbol of the Triple Goddess is drawn with the circular image of the full moon in the center flanked by a left facing crescent and right facing crescent, on either side, representing a maiden, mother and crone archetype.
Some full moons have developed new names in modern times, such as "blue moon", as well as "harvest moon" and "hunter's moon" for the full moons of autumn.
The golden or reddish hue of the Harvest Moon and other full moons near the horizon is caused by atmospheric scattering. When the Moon is low in the sky, its light passes through a thicker layer of Earth's atmosphere, scattering shorter wavelengths like blue and violet and allowing longer wavelengths, such as red and yellow, to dominate. This effect, combined with environmental factors such as dust, pollutants, or haze, can intensify or dull the Moon's color. Clear skies often enhance the yellow or golden appearance, particularly during the autumn months when these full moons are observed.
occur only at a full moon and often cause a reddish hue on the near side of the Moon. This full moon has been called a blood moon in popular culture.
The "harvest moon" (also known as the "barley moon" or "full corn moon") is the full moon nearest to the autumnal equinox (22 or 23 September), occurring anytime within two weeks before or after that date. The "hunter's moon" is the full moon following it. The names are recorded from the early 18th century. The Oxford English Dictionary entry for "harvest moon" cites a 1706 reference, and for "hunter's moon" a 1710 edition of The British Apollo, which attributes the term to "the country people" ("The Country People call this the Hunters-Moon.") The names became traditional in American folklore, where they are now often popularly attributed to Native Americans. The Feast of the Hunters' Moon is a yearly festival in West Lafayette, Indiana, held in late September or early October each year since 1968. In 2010 the harvest moon occurred on the night of the equinox itself (some 5 hours after the moment of equinox) for the first time since 1991, after a period known as the Metonic cycle.
All full moons rise around the time of sunset. Since the Moon moves eastward among the stars faster than the Sun, lunar culmination is delayed by about 50.47 minutes1440 minutes / 29.531 days = 50.47 minutes (on average) each day, thus causing moonrise to occur later each day.
Due to the high lunar standstill, the harvest and hunter's moons of 2007 were special because the time difference between moonrises on successive evenings was much shorter than average. The moon rose about 30 minutes later from one night to the next, as seen from about 40° N or S latitude (because the full moon of September 2007 rose in the northeast rather than in the east). Hence, no long period of darkness occurred between sunset and moonrise for several days after the full moon, thus lengthening the time in the evening when there is enough twilight and moonlight to work to get the harvest in.
In a book on Native American culture published in 1882, Richard Irving Dodge stated:
There is a difference among authorities as to whether or not the moons themselves are named. Brown gives names for nine moons corresponding to months. Maximillian gives the names of twelve moons; and Belden, who lived many years among the Sioux, asserts that "the Indians compute their time very much as white men do, only they use moons instead of months to designate the seasons, each answering to some month in our calendar." Then follows a list of twelve moons with Indian and English names. While I cannot contradict so positive and minute a statement of one so thoroughly in a position to know, I must assert with equal positiveness that I have never met any wild Indians, of the Sioux or other Plains tribes, who had a permanent, common, conventional name for any moon. The looseness of Belden's general statement, that "Indians compute time like white people," when his only particularization of similarity is between the months and moons, is in itself sufficient to render the whole statement questionable.My experience is that the Indian, in attempting to fix on a particular moon, will designate it by some natural and well-known phenomenon which culminates during that moon. But two Indians of the same tribe may fix on different designations; and even the same Indian, on different occasions, may give different names to the same moon. Thus, an Indian of the middle Plains will to-day designate a spring moon as "the moon when corn is planted;" to-morrow, speaking of the same moon, he may call it "the moon when the buffalo comes." Moreover, though there are thirteen moons in our year, no observer has ever given an Indian name to the thirteenth. My opinion is, that if any of the wild tribes have given conventional names to twelve moons, it is not an indigenous idea, but borrowed from the whites.
Jonathan Carver's list of purportedly Native American month names was adopted in the 19th century by the Improved Order of Red Men, an all-white U.S. fraternal organization. They called the month of January "Cold moon", the rest being Snow, Worm, Plant, Flower, Hot, Buck, Sturgeon, Corn, Travelling, Beaver and Hunting moon. They numbered years from the time of Columbus's arrival in America.
In The American Boy's Book of Signs, Signals and Symbols (1918), Daniel Carter Beard wrote: "The Indians' Moons naturally vary in the different parts of the country, but by comparing them all and striking an average as near as may be, the moons are reduced to the following." He then gave a list that had two names for each lunar month, again quite different from earlier lists that had been published.
The 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac published a list of full moon names that it said "were named by our early English ancestors as follows":
It also mentioned blue moon. These were considered in some quarters to be Native American full moon names, and some were adopted by colonial Americans. The Farmers' Almanac (since 1955 published in Maine, but not the same publication as the Maine Farmers' Almanac) continues to print such names.
Such names have gained currency in American folklore. They appeared in print more widely outside of the almanac tradition from the 1990s in popular publications about the Moon. Mysteries of the Moon by Patricia Haddock ("Great Mysteries Series", Greenhaven Press, 1992) gave an extensive list of such names along with the individual tribal groups they were supposedly associated with.repeated in The Moon Book by Kim Long (1998: 102ff. ) Also in Llewellyn's 1996 Moon Sign Book (1995) Haddock supposes that certain "Colonial American" moon names were adopted from Algonquian languages (which were formerly spoken in the territory of New England), while others are based in European tradition (e.g. the Colonial American names for the May moon, "Milk Moon", "Mother's Moon", "Hare Moon" have no parallels in the supposed native names, while the name of November, "Beaver Moon" is supposedly based in an Algonquian language). Many other names have been reported.
These have passed into modern mythology, either as full-moon names, or as names for lunar months. Deanna J. Conway's Moon Magick: Myth & Magick, Crafts & Recipes, Rituals & Spells (1995) gave as headline names for the lunar months (from January): Wolf, Ice, Storm, Growing, Hare, Mead, Hay, Corn, Harvest, Blood, Snow, Cold. Conway also gave multiple alternative names for each month, e.g. the first lunar month after the winter solstice could be called the Wolf, Quiet, Snow, Cold, Chaste or Disting Moon, or the Moon of Little Winter. For the last lunar month Conway offered the names Cold, Oak or Wolf Moon, or Moon of Long Nights, Long Night's Moon, Aerra Geola (Month Before Yule), Wintermonat (Winter Month), Heilagmanoth (Holy Month), Big Winter Moon, Moon of Popping Trees. Conway did not cite specific sources for most of the names she listed, but some have gained wider currency as full-moon names, such as Pink Moon for a full moon in April, Long Night's Moon for the last in December and Ice Moon for the first full moon of January or February.
A continuing lunisolar calendar is the Hebrew calendar. Evidence of this is noted in the dates of Passover and Easter in Judaism and Christianity, respectively. Passover falls on the full moon on 15 Nisan of the Hebrew calendar. The date of the Jewish Rosh Hashana and Sukkot festivals along with all other Jewish holidays are dependent on the dates of the new moons.Leviticus 23:4–7, 33–35. Another continuing lunisolar calendar is the Chinese calendar, which places many of its most important festivals, such as Chinese New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival, according to lunisolar dates.
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