September 19, 2013 12:00 am • Tim Hunter Special to the Arizona Daily Star2 Moon Watch Moon Watch Full moon is today. A full moon is on the opposite side of the Earth, 180 degrees from the sun. This means a full moon rises in the east around sunset and sets in the west around sunrise. The full moon today is a harvest moon which is a folk term for the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox. This year the autumnal or fall equinox occurs on Sunday at 1:45 p.m. MST. In general, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, but around the time of the autumnal equinox, the moon rises about 30 minutes later from one night to the next. The moon seems to hang around the eastern horizon from night to night after sunset providing extra light for “the last days of summer” and for last minute harvesting of summer crops, which is why early Native Americans also called it the corn moon. The autumnal equinox is the official start of autumn. At the exact time of the equinox, the sun crosses the celestial equator from the northern part of the sky to the southern part of the sky. “Equinox” means “equal night” — the hours of day and night are supposedly equal. The hours of day and night are close but not exactly equal at the time of the spring equinox around March 21 and at the time of the autumnal equinox around Sept. 21. For Tucson’s latitude of 32 degrees north, the times of equal daylight (from sunrise to sunset) and night (from sunset to sunrise) are 5-6 days prior to March 21 and 5-6 days after Sept. 21. Around the times of the vernal and autumnal equinox, the sun rises due east and sets due west. Check that out on Sunday when the sun rises at 6:12 a.m. due east and sets at 6:20 p.m. due west.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 02:50:09 +0000
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