Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, September 13th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 38 minutes, setting at 7:57, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:20. The Moon, 1 day before full, will rise tonight 8:12.

Tomorrow is the Harvest Moon. In fact the instant of full moon is 12:33 a.m. tonight, so one could consider the Harvest Moon tonight. Funny thing though, this morning the Moon will reach apogee from the Earth, of 252 thousand miles (406 thousand km), making it the opposite of a super moon, a mini moon. I bet you wouldn’t notice if I didn’t tell you. The Harvest Moon is the name given to the nearest full moon to the autumnal equinox. It is a special time of the lunar cycle when the Moon rises much less than the 50 minutes later average each night. This appeared to extend twilight allowing farmers before the advent of electric lights extra time to gather in their crops each day.

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

Addendum

Harvest Moon effect from September 11 to the 15th, 2019. Note the shallowness of the ecliptic and Moon’s motion near sunset in this period. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).