This week’s low-hanging Buck Moon will show a strange illusion on the horizon

Look to the skies on Thursday and you can see something unusual: the ‘Moon illusion’, which happens when our satellite is low on the horizon.

On July 10, the full moon will rise… but not that high, as it will stay closer to the ground than we’re used to.

This means that it could seem larger, even though it isn’t, because there are more buildings and trees nearby.

Dr Gregory Brown, of the Royal Observatory, told Metro: ‘When it’s very high up in the sky, your eye doesn’t have a good reference for how to determine its size.

‘So to your eye, it may seem smaller, even though it’s actually an identical size.’

The ‘Moon illusion’ is not the only thing that might look different about this week’s Buck Moon, named after the Native American lunar calendar.

‘When the moon is relatively low in the sky, the light from it passes through far more of the atmosphere,’ Dr Brown explained. ‘That means it has to pass through a lot of dust and pollution, particularly if you’re in a big city.

‘This will have the effect of scattering a lot of the blue light that’s coming from the moon away, and leaving behind the yellow, the orange, and the red.

‘So sometimes when the moon is low on the horizon, people can confuse that yellow colour with the a total lunar eclipse sometimes referred to as a Blood Moon.

‘This is actually quite a different colour, but some people will be fooled into thinking that’s what’s going on, just because the moon will look this yellowy, maybe even slightly orange colour.’

Another interesting quirk of this week’s full moon is that it will be the furthest away from the Sun of 2025.

Earth has just left Aphelion, which is the point in its orbit when it is most distant from the Sun.

As the Moon is loyal to us and goes where we go, it has also been at its furthest point away.

Dr Brown explains that the Earth’s orbit is only slightly elliptical, elongating by only around 5 million kilometers from the average distance of 150 million kilometers from the Sun.

So this milestone won’t have a major impact on how the Moon looks, but it will mean it is ever-so-slightly less bright (but you’d need speciaist instruments to notice this: the fact of it hanging low will have a bigger impact on brightness anyway).

Explaining why it will look lower down, he said it relates to the the ecliptic, the imaginary line tracing the Sun’s apparent path across the sky: ‘During any summer, the sun will be very high in the sky during the day.

‘When the Earth spins around to look in the other direction, the full moon, which happens on the exact opposite side of the Earth from the sun, will be low in the sky.’

In winter this will be reversed, with the Moon appearing at its highest.

Why is it called a Buck Moon?

Astronomer Anna Gammon-Ross, also from the Royal Observatory, said: ‘The Buck Moon is a name given to the full Moon that occurs in July.

‘The name “Buck Moon” came from a Native American system which uses the different months’ full Moons as a calendar, to keep track of the seasons.

‘This name indicates the time when male deer shed and regrow their antlers.

Best time to see the Buck Moon

The planetarium astronomer said: ‘In 2025, the moment when the Moon will at its fullest will occur at 9.36pm on the 10th July.

‘The Moon won’t be visible from the UK at this time but it will rise in the east just a few minutes later at 9.45pm.

‘It will look full all throughout this night, as it travels across the sky and sets in the west at 4.54am on the 11th July.

‘There is no particular location you need to be to observe this event – as this is a bright full moon, as long as the night is clear of clouds, it will be easy to spot whether you are in a light-polluted city, or a dark area of countryside.’

What else will be visible in the sky?

Dr Brown added that if you do go moongazing, you could also have one of the last chances to spot Mars in the evening sky for a while.

‘Early in the evening, when the moon is still very low on the horizon, on the other side of the sky towards the west, Mars will just be dropping below the horizon,’ he said.

‘It’ll be very low on the horizon, but visible to the unaided eye as a deep orange-red point of light.

Over the next month or two it will move closer to the sun until it eventually reappears on the other side.

While that happens, ‘it’s going to be so close to the sun that it’s going to be very, very difficult to see.’

If you look from midnight, you might also spy Saturn, which will be brightest at 2am.

Dr Brown said: ‘If you happen to have a a pair of binoculars or a small telescope, you might just be able to catch the the rings around Saturn, which are very thin at the moment because we’re seeing Saturn almost entirely edge on.

‘It won’t be long before Saturn’s rings are invisible to all but the most powerful of telescopes.’

You might think that the full moon happens every month so what’s the fuss, but the astronomer said: ‘Having a look up at the sky every now and then is a really lovely thing to be able to do.

‘The full moon is one of the the most accessible, easy-to-spot objects in the sky, very bright, very big, and doesn’t require any special equipment to see.’

Difference between the Buck Moon and Full Moon

The full moon refers to any time the moon is at its biggest and roundest, but the Buck Moon only refers to the one in July, based on the Native American calendar.

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