In other words, at other times during the year the Moon rises about 50 minutes later each successive night as it moves in its orbit about the Earth. However, around the time of a Harvest Moon, the Moon rises about 30 minutes later from one night to the next due to its path around the Earth and the path of the Earth about the Sun. Consequently, this situation provides almost continuous light to work by for farmers in their fields and for other people just enjoying being outside during this time.

An autumnal equinox, like a spring equinox, is an astronomical event that occurs on the Earth when the Sun is located at the intersection point with celestial equator and the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun). The autumnal equinox occurs specifically at 5:51 EDT (2:51 PDT), which is also 9:51 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), on September 23. At that point the Sun is directly above the Earth’s equator, and the amount of daylight hours and nighttime hours are approximately of the same length.


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