When and where to see the Sturgeon Moon 2027
The exact moment of full moon is Tuesday, August 17, 2027 at 3:29 AM in New York. The best night to watch is Monday, August 16, when the Moon comes up at 7:35 PM, low in the east-southeast, about 18 minutes before sunset. It climbs to about 36° above the horizon around 12:52 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 100% the evening after, and on those nights it rises 25 minutes and 22 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 -12.3° this time, close to the celestial equator, so it rises near due east and sets near due west, up for about twelve hours. It sits in front of the stars of Capricornus.
| City | Exact full moon (local time) |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles | Tuesday, August 17, 2027, 12:29 AM |
| New York | Tuesday, August 17, 2027, 3:29 AM |
| London | Tuesday, August 17, 2027, 8:29 AM |
| Berlin | Tuesday, August 17, 2027, 9:29 AM |
| New Delhi | Tuesday, August 17, 2027, 12:59 PM |
| Tokyo | Tuesday, August 17, 2027, 4:29 PM |
| Sydney | Tuesday, August 17, 2027, 5:29 PM |
Why is it called the Sturgeon Moon?
The Sturgeon Moon is the August full moon. The Old Farmer's Almanac links it to the lake sturgeon of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, huge, long-lived fish that were caught most easily in late summer and were an important food for peoples around the lakes.
Lake sturgeon can live for more than a century and grow over two metres long. They were overfished in the 1800s and are now protected and slowly recovering in many waters.
Other names for the August 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:
- Flying Up Moon: Cree, when young birds leave the nest
- Corn Moon: Algonquin and Ojibwe
- Harvest Moon: Dakota
- Black Cherries Moon: Assiniboine
- Mountain Shadows Moon: Tlingit
August in nature and the sky
August is late summer: grain harvests begin, blackberries ripen, and the first migrant birds start drifting south. Nights grow noticeably longer through the month, and the Perseid meteor shower peaks around August 12 to 13.
The August full moon climbs a little higher than the summer moons before it, crossing Capricornus or Aquarius.
Festivals on the Sturgeon Moon 2027
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.
Raksha Bandhan
August 17, 2027
On the full moon of Shravan, sisters tie a sacred thread (rakhi) on their brothers' wrists. The Purnima fast is kept on August 16.
Nikini Poya
August 16, 2027
Sri Lanka's August full moon holiday is kept the day before the astronomical full moon this year.
Hungry Ghost Festival
August 16, 2027
The Chinese Zhongyuan festival on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, when offerings are made to wandering spirits.
Tu B'Av
Sunset August 17 to nightfall August 18, 2027
The Jewish day of love on the 15th of Av, at the full moon.
This full moon brings a penumbral lunar eclipse on August 17, 2027: the Moon dips about halfway into the faint penumbra, a subtle dimming visible from the Americas before dawn. Two weeks earlier, on August 2, the long total solar eclipse crosses Spain, North Africa and the Middle East. The Perseids peak on August 13 under a waxing gibbous Moon that sets after midnight.
Supermoon, micromoon or neither?
The Sturgeon Moon 2027 is 405,069 km from Earth, centre to centre. That is beyond our micromoon line of 405,000 km, so it is a micromoon, about 5% narrower than a full moon at the average distance. Of the 12 full moons of 2027, it is the 11th closest. The biggest is the Wolf Moon at 357,635 km and the smallest the Buck Moon at 405,968 km.
Eclipse: this full moon passes through Earth's shadow in a penumbral lunar eclipse, greatest at 7:13 AM UTC. About 55% of the Moon's width enters the faint penumbra, a subtle shading that is easy to miss. Details and visibility for your city are on the blood moon and lunar eclipse page.
The Sturgeon Moon from the Southern Hemisphere
In the Southern Hemisphere August is late winter, with wattle blossom in Australia and the first signs of spring in the north of the continent. The full moon happens at the same instant worldwide; in Sydney it is Tuesday, August 17, 2027 at 5:29 PM, and the Moon climbs to about 67° there that night, compared with 36° 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 Sturgeon Moon
More: All full moon names · Moon calendar 2027 · Next full moon · Moon phase today