Starwatch

On Monday night, we officially have our Harvest Moon for 2025 over Butler, and it’s also our first of three “supermoons.” I’m totally OK calling it a Harvest Moon, but I’m far from being in love with the “supermoon” moniker. I’ll defend my case on that later.

If it seems that the Harvest Moon is late this year, that’s true. Most folks assume that any full moon anytime in September is the Harvest Moon, but technically, that’s not the case.

The semiofficial definition of a Harvest Moon is the full moon that is closest to the date of the autumnal equinox, otherwise known as the first day of astronomical autumn. The fall equinox this year was Sept. 22, 14 days before the full moon on this coming Monday night. The full moon last month was Sept. 7, 15 days from the equinox. So just

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