Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Monday, August 15th.  The sun rises at 6:44.  It’ll be up for 14 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 8:48.   The moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 9:16 this evening.

Last Saturday night under partly cloudy skies at the Port Oneida Fair Star Party we saw the full moon rise and it reminded me that the next full moon will be the Harvest Moon.  The next few nights will preview the coming harvest moon effect.  That is that the moon will rise at nearly the same time for several nights in a row.  On average the moon will rise or set 50 minutes later each night.  Due to the geometry of the situation the harvest moon for several nights will only rise later by down to 20 minutes a night.  Back before electric lights the bright moonlight augmented twilight to increase the daily time available to harvest the crops.  This slowdown in the moon’s rise times is affecting us now, though the moon is definitely waning.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.