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[Centaur]

Look for a huge Full Hunter’s Moon during the night of 2007 OCT 25/26! Coincidentally, it will be near the time of the Moon’s closest perigee distance of the period from 2005 FEB to 2008 NOV. This month’s greatest fraction of illumination (99.90%) of the Moon’s apparent disk as viewed from Chicagoland will occur on the 25th at 21:54 CDT. Geocentric perigee of 356,753 km will occur on the 26th at 06:53 CDT with the Moon’s geocentric angular diameter at 33.5 arcminutes. Too bad this fortunate combination of events will not be happening six evenings later for the Trick or Treaters on Halloween!

[Centaur]

I’ve created a graphic that demonstrates the variations in the declinations, distances and angular diameters among the 15 Full Moons from 2007 APR 02 to 2008 MAY 20. It can be seen at www.curtrenz.com/astronomical.html

Full Moons (or any particular phases) go through a complete cycle of distances from Earth every 14 lunar (synodic) months or 1.13 years. The coming Full Moon on OCT 25/26 will be near perigee and the closest of the current cycle. The most extreme perigees coincide with Full Moons. The first and last Full Moons shown on the chart were near apogees.

The top portion of the chart shows the variation in declination of the Full Moons. To determine each Full Moon’s altitude at meridian transit for your location, add the declination (south is negative) to your co-latitude (90° - latitude). This variation goes through an annual cycle than is opposite to that of the Sun: The Full Moon is higher in winter and lower in summer. Additionally, there is an 18.6-year cycle in which the amplitude of the declinations varies: most extreme in 2006 and least in 2015.

Across the lower center of the chart is shown the Earth and Moon in proper scale with the distances noted in thousands of kilometers (Mm or megameters).

At the bottom of the chart is shown the differing angular sizes of the Moon resulting from the changes in distance.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Thanks Curt for this informative and useful information on the upcoming "Hunters" Moon.

The Chicago Astronomers will assemble to view the Full Moon rise on Thursday, the 25th of October at around 5:00 pm for the 5:21 pm rise over Lake Michigan.

If you can't make it by Moonrise time, that's ok...we will stick around for some time afterwards.

[Centaur]

Here's a picture I took from Arlington Heights, Illinois of the full Hunter’s Moon near perigee on 2007 OCT 25 at 17:46 CDT. That was 25 minutes after moonrise and 10 minutes before sunset.

Also in the picture are three airplanes and a flock of geese headed south for the winter.

It was taken with my Sony Cyber-shot DSC F717 at full 5x zoom, ISO 100, F/2.4 and 1/1000 sec. The original was cropped and then reduced to 52% of the linear dimensions.

[Centaur]

I should have fattened the geese before I allowed them to fly across my scene. Tom Skilling displayed the picture during his 9:30 WGN-TV weathercast his evening, but the geese failed to resolve on TV screens.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Look at the Grouse!

Cool that Skilling used your image as part of his weather segment.

We only caught just about one half hour of the Moonrise by the lake. Full narrative and pics shortly.

Thanks for sharing.