Spooky, close moon for Halloween, Mercury and Jupiter tonight

By Dave Samuhel, AccuWeather senior meteorologist

10/29/2018, 4:11:21 PM

First of all, a big shout-out to our photographer friends that have sent in some amazing moon shots to the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page recently! Keep up the awesome work. (Scroll down to see some of their pictures)

Before we talk about the "spooky moon", take a look southwest right after sunset for a pairing of Jupiter and Mercury. You should be able to easily spot Jupiter. Once you find Jupiter, look down for Mercury. It is bright but hard to spot since it's so close to the sun. It sets soon after the sun.

The moon continues to take center stage as we approach Halloween. The moon makes one orbit around the Earth each month. During each orbit, there is a point where the moon is closest to the earth and where it is farthest.

This month, the moon will be at its closest on Halloween (Wednesday). If it was a full moon, it would be deemed a super moon, but the moon will be in its last quarter phase. We can call it a super last quarter moon! Haha.

The moon rises around midnight Halloween night. There will be no planets nearby, but there will be a few famous constellations.

Thanks for reading! Just look up; you never know what you will see.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

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