October will end with one of the biggest and brightest full moons of 2026. The full Hunter’s Moon will turn full at 12:11 a.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 26, but the most impressive sight will come many hours later when it emerges above the eastern horizon around sunset. Get your timing right and you’ll see an orange full moon appearing on the horizon during twilight — one of nature’s most beautiful sights. Here’s everything you need to know about October’s Hunter’s Moon.

The Hunter’s Moon will officially be full at 12:11 a.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 26. That’s the instant when the moon reaches the point in its orbit opposite the sun as seen from Earth, with its Earth-facing hemisphere fully illuminated. However, there’s little reason to stay up to see that precise moment.

To the naked eye, the moon will look full for a couple of nights around Oct. 26. The more important timing is moonrise, when the full moon is low on the horizon, often appears orange and can be seen against a twilight sky.

The evening of Monday, Oct. 26 will offer the best opportunity to watch the Hunter’s Moon appear on the eastern horizon close to sunset. Across North America, the full moon will rise shortly after sunset.

For the best view, find somewhere with an unobstructed eastern horizon and arrive about 20 minutes before moonrise. Hills, buildings, trees and atmospheric haze can mean the moon does not become visible until several minutes after its official rise time.

Why A Full Moon Looks Best At Moonrise

The precise instant of a full moon is an astronomical event, but moonrise is the visual event. When the moon is close to the horizon, its light travels through more of Earth’s atmosphere than when it is overhead. More blue light is scattered away, sometimes leaving the moon looking orange. Then there’s the “moon illusion,” a psychological effect that makes the moon seem much larger when it is close to the horizon.

Why Is October’s Full Moon Called The Hunter’s Moon?

The Hunter’s Moon is the traditional name for the full moon that follows the Harvest Moon, the full moon that falls closest to the September equinox. Its name is associated with the season after the harvest, when fields had been cleared and bright evening moonlight was traditionally said to help hunters. There’s also some orbital mechanics behind the timing. Around fall in the Northern Hemisphere, the moon’s path meets the eastern horizon at a shallow angle. As a result, the delay between successive moonrises can be shorter than the average of about 50 minutes. The effect is strongest around the Harvest Moon, but it continues into the period around the Hunter’s Moon.

A ‘Once-In-A-Century’ New Crater On The Moon

In September, scientists revealed that NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had discovered McGetchin crater, a newly formed impact feature measuring 728 feet (222 meters) wide and 141 feet (43 meters) deep. Researchers traced the impact to sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024, when an asteroid or comet thought to have been about the size of a three- to six-storey building slammed into the lunar surface.

Although LRO scientists have identified at least 1,000 new impact craters during more than 17 years of observations, an impact on this scale is estimated to occur only about once every century or longer. The collision also produced a four-mile-wide “cold spot” where nighttime temperatures are about 16 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) lower than the surrounding terrain. Researchers think the impact churned up and loosened the lunar regolith, changing how efficiently it stores heat.