Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, September 28th.  The sun will rise at 7:37.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 50 minutes, setting at 7:27.   The moon, 1 day before full, will set at 7:10 tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow is the Harvest Moon, the nearest full moon to the autumnal equinox.   Here the path of the moon in the sky against the stars is shallow causing the moon to rise only a little later each night.  Back before electricity was available to farms this gave extra time for farmers to gather in their crops each day.  This effect lasts for a bit less than a week both before and after the full moon.  We astronomers aren’t big fans of the effect because the sky stays bright longer and masks the faint things they want to see.  Not all astronomers are bummed by bright moonlight.  There’s plenty to study when the moon is out:  planets and reasonably bright stars.  It’s just that the fainter objects are lost.

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

Addendum

Shallow path of the moon for 11 nights centered on the Harvest Moon in 2012. Created using Cartes duCiel (Sky Charts).

Click on the image to enlarge.