When and where to see the Hunter's Moon 2026
The exact moment of full moon is Monday, October 26, 2026 at 12:12 AM in New York. The best night to watch is Sunday, October 25, when the Moon comes up at 5:26 PM, low in the east-northeast, about 35 minutes before sunset. It climbs to about 66° above the horizon around 12:31 AM and sets around sunrise the next morning.
A full moon looks full for about three nights. From New York the Moon is 98% lit when it rises the evening before and 99% the evening after, and on those nights it rises 27 minutes and 32 minutes later each evening. Those short gaps are the shallow autumn angle of the Moon's path at work, the effect behind the Harvest and Hunter's Moons.
The Moon is at a declination of +16.8° this time, well north of the celestial equator, so for the Northern Hemisphere it rides high and stays up a long time. It sits in front of the stars of Aries.
| City | Exact full moon (local time) |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles | Sunday, October 25, 2026, 9:12 PM |
| New York | Monday, October 26, 2026, 12:12 AM |
| London | Monday, October 26, 2026, 4:12 AM |
| Berlin | Monday, October 26, 2026, 5:12 AM |
| New Delhi | Monday, October 26, 2026, 9:42 AM |
| Tokyo | Monday, October 26, 2026, 1:12 PM |
| Sydney | Monday, October 26, 2026, 3:12 PM |
Why is it called the Hunter's Moon?
The Hunter's Moon is the full moon after the Harvest Moon, so it usually falls in October and occasionally in early November. The Old Farmer's Almanac explains it as the time when game animals were fattened for winter and the harvested fields made them easy to see, so hunters stocked up on meat by its light.
Like the Harvest Moon, the Hunter's Moon benefits from the shallow autumn angle of the Moon's path, so it rises only a little later from one evening to the next, giving a run of bright early evenings. It is also sometimes called the Blood Moon or Sanguine Moon, an old seasonal name that has nothing to do with lunar eclipses.
Other names for the October full moon
The almanac names are one tradition among many. Native American peoples used hundreds of moon names that followed their own local seasons, and the attributions below are those given by the Old Farmer's Almanac:
- Travel Moon: general usage
- Drying Rice Moon: Dakota
- Falling Leaves Moon: Anishinaabe
- Freezing Moon: Ojibwe
- Migrating Moon: Cree
- Blood Moon or Sanguine Moon: old European usage, not an eclipse
October in nature and the sky
Autumn colour reaches its peak in the northern forests, deer enter the rut, and the last of the harvest is brought in. The nights are now clearly longer than the days, and clocks change at the end of October in Europe and early November in North America.
The Hunter's Moon crosses Pisces, Aries or Taurus, in the autumn sky that also holds the Pleiades and the Andromeda Galaxy, though the bright moonlight drowns faint objects for a few nights.
Festivals on the Hunter's Moon 2026
Many of the world's calendars are lunar, so festivals around the globe fall on this same full moon. Dates below were checked against published calendars; where India and the US keep different dates, both are given.
Sharad Purnima (Kojagiri Purnima)
October 25, 2026
The Hindu full moon of the month of Ashwin, kept on October 25 in both India and the United States. It is the brightest full moon of the year in Hindu tradition: rice pudding (kheer) is left out under the moonlight, and in Bengal and Maharashtra families stay awake for Kojagari Lakshmi Puja.
Valmiki Jayanti
October 26, 2026 (India), October 25 in New York
The birth anniversary of the sage Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, is kept on the same Ashwin full moon.
Vap Poya
October 25, 2026
In Sri Lanka every full moon day is a public holiday (Poya). Vap Poya marks the end of the Buddhist rains retreat and the season of offering new robes to monks.
Ok Phansa and Thadingyut
October 26, 2026 (Thailand); around October 25 (Myanmar)
The end of Buddhist Lent in Thailand and the Thadingyut festival of lights in Myanmar both fall on this full moon, with candles, lanterns and boat races.
Four days later comes Karva Chauth (October 29 by the India date), when the waning Moon's late rise ends the day-long fast, and five days later Samhain and Halloween on October 31. Diwali follows at the new moon on November 8, 2026.
Supermoon, micromoon or neither?
The Hunter's Moon 2026 is 368,859 km from Earth, centre to centre. That is neither a supermoon (closer than 362,500 km) nor a micromoon (farther than 405,000 km); it appears 4.2% wider than a full moon at the average distance. Of the 13 full moons of 2026, it is the 4th closest. The biggest is the Cold Moon at 356,729 km and the smallest the Blue Moon at 406,126 km.
The Hunter's Moon from the Southern Hemisphere
In the Southern Hemisphere this full moon falls in mid-spring. The southern Hunter's Moon is the one after the March Harvest Moon, usually in April. The full moon happens at the same instant worldwide; in Sydney it is Monday, October 26, 2026 at 3:12 PM, and the Moon climbs to about 36° there that night, compared with 66° from New York. South of the equator the Moon also looks upside down to northern eyes, with the dark "Man in the Moon" features flipped.
Before and after the Hunter's Moon
More: All full moon names · Moon calendar 2026 · Next full moon · Moon phase today