It is hard to believe that the harvest moon approaches. This is the full moon poets love. Next Tuesday, the Harvest Moon rises in the east over Chappaquiddick.

The Harvest Moon is in the zodiacal constellation Aquarius, the water bearer and moving closer to the zodiacal constellation Pisces. These are constellations we associate with autumn, the closing out of summer.

The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the first day of autumn. The moon doesn’t just mark the end of the growing season, it presages shorter days and longer nights.

For those who are up later in the evening, you may be surprised to see the zodiacal constellation Taurus, with the star cluster Pleiades rising in the east. While the Harvest Moon is indeed a sign of autumn, seeing Taurus rising in the east lets us know that the change in season is a certainty.

For anglers fishing at night this month, these and many of the stars overhead are a familiar sight. The Harvest Moon also marks the beginning of the fall fish migration.

Milky Way

Another harbinger of autumn is the re-emergence of the Milky Way in our night sky. As the evening gets later, the Milky Way stretches from northeast to south. Unfortunately, with this brilliant bright full moon in the sky, the far more fainter Milky Way is a challenge to see. But, in the nights ahead, the Milky Way will dominate our evenings and it too will become an angler’s friend.