Over the next few nights, the full moon will be riding low in our summer sky.

The summer solstice will occur Saturday (June 21), so the noontime sun is nearly at the highest it can get in our Northern Hemisphere skies. This puts the full moon, occurring just after midnight Eastern Daylight Time on Friday the 13th, at close to the lowest it can possibly get this week.

As far as the naked eye is concerned, the moon looks full for a day or two on either side of the exact "full" phase. Only with a telescope can you see that the moon is being lit from a slight angle, causing the line of sunrise or sunset on the moon, called the terminator, to be very close to one edge or the other.

The result is that any night this week will look like a "full moon night."

An interesting event involving the moon occurred last week on Saturday (June 7). To viewers on Earth, it appeared as if the moon was very close to the planet Mars, what astronomers call a "conjunction." This was of course just an effect of perspective, Mars actually lying 320 million times farther away from us than the moon. (Source)


Native American Names for June Moon

Leaves Moon (Cree).
Ripe Berries (Dakota).
Hoer moon (Abernaki).
Windy Moon (Choctaw).
Summer moon (Kiowa).
Buffalo Moon (Omaha).
Leaf Moon (Assiniboine).
Corn Tassel Moon(Taos).
Green grass Moon(Sioux).
Ripening Moon (Mohawk).
Turtle Moon (Potawatomi).
Making fat Moon (Lakota).
Hot weather moon (Ponca).

Leaf Dark Moon (San Juan).
Major Planting Moon (Hopi).
Planting Moon (Neo Pagan).
Fish Spoils Moon (Wishram).
Water melon Moon (Natchez).
Hot Weather moon (Arapaho).
Dyad Moon (Medieval English).
Strawberry Moon (Anishnaabe).
Dark green leaves Moon (Pueblo).
Summer Moon (Passamaquoddy).
Green Corn Moon, Flower Moon (Cherokee).
Mead Moon (Full Janic), Strawberry moon (Dark Janic).
Honey Moon, Hot Moon, Strawberry Moon, Rose Moon (Algonquin).
Other Moon names : Hay Moon, Aerra Litha Moon, Strong Sun Moon, Lovers Moon

The “Honey Moon,” as the June full moon is known, fell on the unlucky day for the last time in 1919. You’ll be able to watch its newest appearance on this live stream provided by Slooh, starting at 9:00 pm EDT. The live stream, which is streamed from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the Pontificia Universidad Católica De Chile, will be accompanied by comments from astronomer Bob Berman. It will be two hours long.