According to Bob Bonadurer, who is the director of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s planetarium, the strawberry moon looks the most colourful when moving low and the path it takes is very shallow.
I mean according to Bob Bonadurer, director of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s planetarium, the strawberry moon is the most colourful because it has low altitude and at the same time follows a shallow trajectory. Skywatchers will get some special features with regards to this June’s full moon: “Not only will the moon be unusually low, it is also expected to be quite big and could even look rather colourful” (as stated by astronomers).
The strawberry full moon will appear in the evening skies over America on the 21st of June that falls on a Friday following the summer solstice. Regrettably, it will not resemble a strawberry, and most likely it will not even be red, scientists assert but it might have a golden shade, they add.
The full moon of June 2024 is close to the summer solstice when the sun is highest in the sky all year round. As such, this month has the lowest full moon at this time of year when compared to any other ‘in recent decades’ (The Old Farmer’s Almanac). Because the moon traverses a low trajectory across our skies; when it’s low down on the horizon it seems much larger than when up at its peak or zenith. This phenomenon is known as “Moon Illusion” among scientists and no one has been able to explain it yet.
According to the Old Farmers Almanac, “After twilight on 21 June, wait for the full Moon to rise slowly over the southeastern horizon.” This is where it will seem immense and golden coloured.
When is the full strawberry moon?
On Friday, June 21, at 9:08 PM Eastern Time the opening summer full moon will be fully complete which is also known as the strawberry moon. The moon is going to look like when it is full from the evening of Thursday night through Sunday morning and it will stay visible for three days around the peak time according to Gordon Johnston from NASA’s notes.”
Colourful, large, and low
Bob Bonadurer, director of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s planetarium, explains that the moon takes a shallow, low course over the sky making it the most colourful of all the other moons. The added advantage of the low arc across the sky in June implies that moonlight has to pass through more of our planet’s atmosphere, hence its usual orange/yellow hue’s digitalmdüsseldorf.
NASA says it will also be the smallest full moon of the year since it will rise only 21.9 degrees above the southern horizon Saturday morning at 1:20 a.m.
Why is it called the strawberry moon?
The strawberry moon has historically been called as such, but the name does not imply anything about its colour or physical appearance, as reported by the Almanac (Almanac). The almanack also mentioned that the full moon of June is used by Native American Algonquin tribes residing in northeastern US for knowing when they should collect ripe June-bearing strawberries, others who have done the same being Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota (Ward, 1997).
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