Check-in/Check-outSelect Dates
Guests2 guests
ResidenceSouth Korea
Today
A thin sliver left low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. Only people who are already awake before dawn ever see it, which makes it the least witnessed phase of the month. The dark part of the disc glows faintly with earthshine, just as it did at the waxing crescent, except that this time the lit edge is on the other side. In a few days it will be swallowed by the Sun's glare, the new moon arrives and the cycle closes. Because the Moon does not climb into the sky until just before dawn, most of the night is dark — which puts this among the best weeks of the month for stars and the Milky Way.
The last stretch before the cycle closes. Tradition read it as the time to rest — there is nothing left to fill before the next new moon, and pushing hard here only means starting the new cycle already tired. Take one thing off today's list. And if you write down, even briefly, what the past month has left you with, then choosing what to begin at the new moon in a few days becomes far easier. Resting is not stopping; it is the time when the next thing gets decided.
Only people who are awake before dawn get to see this sky. About an hour before sunrise, look low toward the eastern horizon. Along with the thin crescent, this is where the planets that are visible only at dawn tend to sit. Earthshine washes over the dark part of the disc exactly as it did at the waxing crescent, except that the lit edge is on the other side this time. And because the Moon does not come up until just before dawn, stargazing in the small hours is second only to new-moon week — everything from evening until just before dawn is dark sky.
The last part to sink into darkness is the western limb. Grimaldi, on the lower edge of Oceanus Procellarum, has one of the darkest floors on the Moon and stands out even in binoculars as a black patch. To the north of the same mare, Aristarchus is the brightest crater on the near side — young enough that the material it dug out is still bright, and when earthshine lights the dark part of the disc it can be picked up as a single point glowing inside it. All of this sits low toward the eastern horizon before dawn, so you need a spot with a clear view.
Near the terminator the sunlight grazes the surface and the shadows run several times longer than they otherwise would — lunar features show best when they stand on the terminator, not at the brightest full moon. The terminator moves about 12 degrees a day, so the features listed here give up their place to the next ones in three or four nights. The dates of the coming phases below are the dates this list changes.
Hunter's Moon. The month for hunting over the emptied fields after the harvest, with winter coming. As with the Harvest Moon, the Moon comes up in the early evening night after night through this stretch, so there was light left on the land well after sunset — it is the same effect as the month before, so it too is sharper the further you are from the equator. The two names sitting side by side is no coincidence — reaping and hunting shared the same borrowed light.
⚠️ These names came out of the seasons of the temperate northern hemisphere, North America and Europe. South of the equator the seasons are reversed, so the names and the actual sky pull apart — January's Wolf Moon falls in high summer down there, and July's Buck Moon lands in the middle of winter. That is why we introduce them rather than carrying them across as they stand. And it is not only the names that come apart — the sky itself is turned over. The June full moon described above as riding low is the one that passes highest of all south of the equator, and the Harvest Moon effect, where moonrise is barely delayed from one night to the next, arrives there in March instead of September. If you are reading this under the southern sky, shift every season in it by half a year.
Ask more
Calculated live from real lunar orbital mechanics (astronomy-engine) — not a fixed table, the dates shift slightly every year.