Here you see the rise of the October full moon yesterday over Acadia National Park during a dingy dusk:
Below, you’ll see that moon as it climbed above our dirty atmosphere, where you could clearly see some of its basaltic craters and plains that were formed by ancient asteroid impacts. It was more than 231,000 miles away yesterday.
This moon was called the hunters’ moon by Native Americans who stocked up on food at this time of year, especially deer that had fattened for the winter, according to the Farmers’ Almanac records. We usually continue to call the October full moon the hunters’ moon, but once every four years it rises in November. (The word “moon,” itself, is derived from ancient words for “month.”)
As for the moon’s surface, that little “belly button” in the moon’s southwest (lower left) is the little crater Tycho, if I’m reading my lunar map correctly; immediately above it to the left are the dark seas of moisture and of clouds, among others; to its right in the moon’s southeast and east, are the seas of vapors, of nectar, and of fertility, among others. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 28 and 29 (12:34 a.m.), 2023.)