Full Moon Rises For Christmas Day 2015

Rudolph might be able to take a year off from Santa’s annual trek around the world this year. It seems the moon will be more than bright enough to stand in for his glowing red nose.

The experts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center anticipate a near full moon Christmas Eve with a peak Christmas Day at 6:11 a.m. EST. That will be the first time the full moon has made a Christmas Day appearance since 1977, The Weather Channel reported. The well-timed occurrence isn’t expected to repeat until 2034.

Like full moons in all other months, Native Americans have special names for December’s. The moon is known as the Oak Moon, Cold Moon or Long Nights Moon, according to Space.com. That website points out that the December full moon “rises around sunset and sets around sunrise; this is the only night in the month when the moon is in the sky all night long. The rest of the month, the moon spends at least some time in the daytime sky.”

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• Last Meteor Shower of 2015: Geminids Peak This Weekend

While it’s still a little far out to peg the weather for Christmas Day’s arrival, sky gazers will find plenty of other reasons to look to the heavens this month. The Geminids are expected to put on quite a show when they peak Saturday and Sunday nights, Dec. 12-13. The meteor shower will be the last of the year.

The National Weather Service’s prediction for the Tampa Bay area this weekend means spotting the Geminids’ display might be a little hit-or-miss. The agency expects a partly cloudy Saturday night followed up by a mostly cloudy Sunday evening.

Other notable sky gazing events in December include the New Moon’s arrival Dec. 11, the First Quarter Moon on Dec. 18 and the Dec. 21 solstice, according to Space.com. The website also suggests checking out the sky about a half-hour after sunset Dec. 29 when Mercury will be “well placed for observation in the western sky.”

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