What is Hunter’s Moon?What is special about Hunter's Moon?
The Hunter's Moon is the full moon that occurs after the Harvest Moon.
A full moon always appears opposite the sun when seen from anywhere on Earth. Hence, every full moon rises in the east around sunset, and all full moons set in the west around sunrise.
But every full moon has different specialties, mostly related to their paths across the sky.
Nature is especially helpful around the time of the autumnal equinox, making the autumn full moonrises special. Every day, the moon rises around 50 minutes later.
However, when a full moon happens close to the autumnal equinox, then it will be either a Harvest Moon or a Hunter Moon. The moon rises around 30 minutes later daily for many days before and following the full moon.
The reason for this is that full moons closest to the September equinox follow a path across the Northern Hemisphere sky shortly after rising, which makes a narrow angle with respect to the eastern evening horizon.
In other words, at the time of the autumn equinox, the moon's orbital path makes a narrow angle with the eastern horizon.
Hence, for many evenings in a row in early autumn, you might see a bright moon in the east shortly after sunset.
That is the Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the September equinox. The full moon after the Harvest Moon is called Hunter's Moon.
Jupiter is the bright light shining near the full and almost full moon in 2022. Saturn, another planet, is the dimmer light that can be seen farther to the west of Jupiter.