• For much of the world's Northern Hemisphere, October 29, 2012 is the night of the full Hunter's Moon. Watch it rise in the east as the sun goes down. Like any full moon, the Hunter's Moon will shine all night long. It'll soar highest in the sky around midnight on October 29

and will set in the west the following sunrise. Officially, the Hunter's Moon is the full moon after the Harvest Moon, which is the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox. This year, the Harvest Moon came in late September. That's why tonight's moon in late October bears the name Hunter's Moon.
• Generally speaking, we can say the moon stays full all through the night tonight. But to astronomers, the moon turns full at a well-defined instant, or when it's most opposite the sun for the month. That happens today at 19:49 Universal Time (or 2:49 p.m. Central Daylight Time in North America).
• How is the Hunter's Moon different from other full moons? The Hunter's Moon always occurs in autumn. In the Northern Hemisphere, it usually falls in October, although it can come as late as early November. In the Southern Hemisphere, a full moon with Hunter's Moon characteristics comes in April or May.
• Autumn full moons - like the Hunter's Moon or Harvest Moon - are different from other full moons. That's because, in autumn, the ecliptic - or path of the sun, moon and planets - makes a narrow angle with the evening horizon. That fact causes several sky phenomena. For example, the location of the moonrise on your horizon, for several nights around a Northern Hemisphere autumn full moon, is noticeably farther north along the eastern horizon for several nights in succession.
• It's this northward movement of the moon along the eastern horizon at moon

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