Here you see the August full moon rising orange and big over Jericho Bay Saturday night. As it rose, it transformed from red-orange into hues of lighter and lighter yellow until it was high enough to become a bright white spotlight. It then cast a glittering probe into Naskeag Harbor:
It was almost close enough to be a supermoon that night. Its early orange and yellowish colors were caused by its low position in the sky, which forces the early moonlight to come to us through more of the summer’s hazy-gritty atmosphere. That pollution scatters shorter blue wavelengths and lets longer red and orange wavelengths reach us.
It was sailing away over Great Cove before dawn the next morning:
The August full moon most often is called the Sturgeon Moon, reportedly a translation from the Native American fishing tribes that depended on those prehistoric-looking fish to rise and run in lakes and rivers now. Other common names for our fully-illuminated companion in August are Grain Moon, Green Corn Moon, and Red Moon. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 9 and 10. 2025.)