50+ Lifestyles

The Two Moons of October and Other Night Phenomena

By Eloise Graham

October 1, 2020 starts off with a full moon. This full moon will reach peak illumination at 4:05 pm on Thursday the first of October. However, because of daylight, it won’t be visible until after sunset. The name, Full Harvest Moon often the name for this moon, is also know as the Full Corn Moon. This name is attributed to the Native Americans, because it marked when corn was supposed to be harvested.

Two out of three years the full Harvest Moon occurs in September. It is the full moon after the autumnal equinox. This year the Harvest Moon falls on October first. Being so early in the month, October will have a second full moon called the Full Hunter’s Moon. It is also known as Sanguine Moon by the Native Americans. At night, by the moonlight, the fattened deer, the fox, rabbits, squirrels and other game are now easily seen in open, harvested fields. It is time to hunt and store up meat for the long winter ahead.

This year the Hunter’s Moon is the second full moon of the month, so it is also called a Blue Moon. This lunar phenomenon just happens to be on Halloween. A full Hunter’s Blue Moon only occurs every 18 or 19 years.

Sandwiched in between these two full moons are other night sky events.

The Draconids Meteor Shower, a minor meteor shower, produces only about 10 meteors per hour. It is produced by dust grains left behind by comet 21P Giacobini- Zinner, which was first discovered in 1900. The shower is not made up of massive chunks of decaying space rock, rather specks of dust and sand that collide with the atmosphere as the comet travels its 6.6 year orbit.

Uranus at its brightest will occur on October 19. On the evening of October 19, Uranus reaches opposition. This means that it is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. This means Uranus is in full illumination. There will be a new moon in the evening sky so these conditions are phenomenal for a rare and extraordinary celestial event.

The Orionids meteor shower will take place around October 21. This shower is caused by a debris field left behind by the Halley comet. The showers are named for the constellation Orion, from which they seem to originate. The shower peaks on the night of October 20 with a rate of about 10-20 meteors per hour. The moon won’t interfere because it will be in the crescent phase and will dip below the horizon before the shower starts up.