The Super Harvest Moon is the last one of the year! How to observe it this September 29?

This Friday, September 29, the moon will take on an orange hue at night. the occasion of the Super Harvest Moon. A phenomenon that occurs for the last time this year.

The last supermoon of the year will light up the sky this Friday, September 29. Tinted with orange and red and nicknamed the “full harvest moon”, it concludes the series of four super moons of the year 2023. If the weather ;where permitting, the spectacle promises to be grandiose for astronomy enthusiasts. The Earth's natural satellite will reach its perigee, in other words the point of its orbit closest to the Earth, while its disk will light up completely tonight. Thus the Moon will appear not only slightly larger in the sky, but also a little brighter than outside. usual.

To admire this last super Moon of the year, you will have to wait for sunset around 7:30 p.m. The Moon will then rise above the horizon and will be clearly visible in the absence of clouds. The night star can be admired until the end of the day. dawn around 7am. The Moon will then be located at 359,910,kilometers from our planet, that is to say slightly less close than during the last super Moon on August 31. But this difference will be imperceptible from Earth.

This year, four supermoons followed one another. The first took place in July, the month of August had more. two in a row, and here is the last one which takes place in September. To admire the next one, you will have to wait almost a year with the "super sturgeon moon" which will take place on August 19, 2024.

A relatively common phenomenon

If the term "super Moon" Moon from the United States has become widespread in recent decades, conjuring up the image of the fascinating spectacle of a Moon considerably larger than Usually, it's actually about This is a fairly common phenomenon. Indeed, the Moon's orbit around the Earth adopts an elliptical shape, which means that our natural satellite is not always located near the Earth. the same distance from our planet depending on whether it is at the ends of the ellipse or between them.

The dates of the super Moon therefore correspond to the moments when The Moon is at the point in its orbit closest to Earth. However, scientists rarely use the term supermoon, which is a bit sensationalist for a regular and ultimately unspectacular event. Indeed, if that night our natural satellite appears slightly larger and brighter than the rest of the time, this difference in size is not perceptible to the outside world. the naked eye. Without equipment, you should therefore observe a relatively classic full Moon, which does not prevent the phenomenon from being, as always, a superb spectacle.