Supermoon a Site to Behold Monday Night

You are going to want to check out the supermoon over Illinois Monday night. The biggest and brightest moon for observers in the United States will be on Monday just before dawn, according to NASA.

NASA says the moon won't be this big again until 2034.

Nov. 14's full moon will be a supermoon, but those aren't particularly rare. October's full moon was a supermoon, and December's will be, too. But November's will be the biggest supermoon since 1948, according to Bob Berman, an astronomer at the Slooh Community Observatory.

“I’ve been telling people to go out at night on either Sunday or Monday night to see the supermoon,” said Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission. “The difference in distance from one night to the next will be very subtle, so if it’s cloudy on Sunday, go out on Monday. Any time after sunset should be fine. Since the moon is full, it’ll rise at nearly the same time as sunset, so I’d suggest that you head outside after sunset, or once it’s dark and the moon is a bit higher in the sky. You don’t have to stay up all night to see it, unless you really want to!”

Skies over northern Illinois on Monday are expected to be mostly cloudy until evening and there's no chance of rain. So, go outside and look up tonight, early tomorrow or Monday.

What is a supermoon?

The moon's orbit around Earth isn't a perfect circle. It's more oval- or egg-shaped, meaning the moon is continuously getting closer or farther away from us.

The moon's closest point to Earth is called "perigee," which is about 30,000 miles closer than the opposite, "apogee." When perigee lines up with the cycle of a full moon, it's known as a supermoon.

Supermoons can appear to be about 14 percent bigger in the sky and 30 percent brighter.

But the exact moments of a full moon and perigee hardly ever line up simultaneously. So the supermoons can vary slightly in size.

with reporting by Tom Davis and Marc Torrence