August full moon 2025 captivates skywatchers worldwide as Sturgeon Moon lights up the sky (images)

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August’s full moon, often known as the ‘Sturgeon Moon’ made a splash when it leapt above the southern horizon on Aug. 9 earlier this week, illuminating the summer season sky mere days earlier than the height of the Perseid meteor bathe.

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The Sturgeon Moon will get its identify from the big lake fish that have been as soon as ample round this time of yr and which served as an necessary supply of meals for a number of Native American tribes. It’s additionally typically known as the ‘Red Moon’, on account of the ruddy hue it has been recognized to undertake in the summertime haze, whereas the Anishinaabe folks of the Great Lakes knew it because the ‘Ricing Moon’ and used it as an indication that it was time to usher in the harvest.

Each full moon is a spectacular sight to the bare eye and a prized goal for astrophotographers worldwide, who bent their data and ability to the duty of capturing the majesty of August’s fully-lit lunar disk.

Some photographers aimed their lenses on the moon throughout moonrise, capturing its dramatic yellow-orange glow as Earth’s atmosphere scattered the bluer wavelengths of daylight in a course of often known as Rayleigh Scattering. Others snapped the moon because it tracked a low path via the summer season sky, recording spectacular element on the lunar floor, whereas lining up spectacular pictures that blended the traditional and the brand new in a single body.

Read on to see a collection of among the greatest August full moon images from around the globe.

The August 2025 full Sturgeon Moon in footage

This gorgeous view of the total Sturgeon Moon suspended between New York’s iconic skyscrapers was taken by Nazli Zeynep Karabulut on the evening of Aug. 9, because the lunar disk rose over New York and was briefly speared by the purpose of the Empire State Building.

Ismael Adnan Yaqoob captured the moon hundreds of miles from New York because it drifted near the lights of an amusement park within the metropolis of Mosul, Iraq on the identical evening (Aug. 9).

This stunningly detailed high-contrast view of the lunar disk was captured on Aug. 9 by Tayfun Coskun because the moon hung above Mt. Hamilton in San Jose, California. Dark lunar seas will be seen scarring the lunar floor alongside sweeping mountain ranges and outstanding impression websites, together with the majestic type of Tycho Crater, which dominates the decrease area of the moon’s disk.

Photographer Riccardo De Luca captured a lovely shot of the orange-red Sturgeon Moon because it rose above the historic Colosseum in Rome, with the towering Arch of Titus illuminated to the correct of the picture.

Isa Terli’s moody composition featured a potent mixture of the outdated and the brand new by capturing the crimson type of the rising Sturgeon Moon because it hung between the helps of the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey.

This picture of the yellow full moon rising close to the traditional temple of Poseidon in southern Greece was captured on Aug. 9, by photographer Costas Baltas, near the town of Athens.

A highlight shone from the tip of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, seems to pick the orange type of the rising Sturgeon Moon on this dramatic composition by Mustafa Yalcin, additionally taken on Aug. 9.

Lorenzo Di Cola snapped a shot of the lunar disk rising over the ruins of Rocca Calascio on Aug. 8, within the runup to the total moon from the Province of L’Aquila, Abruzzo in Italy.

Photographer Yasin Akgul captured the Sturgeon Moon warped by atmospheric disturbance on Aug. 9, because it loomed above the rooftops of Istanbul, Turkey, near the well-known Galata Tower.

Faisal Bashir took a stunningly detailed shot of the lunar disk on Aug. 8, forward of the total moon part, framed by the fragile silhouettes of overhanging leaves.

Photographer Max Guliani additionally posted a collection of spectacular moonrise pictures to his X account, displaying the total lunar disk looming massive between the enduring skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan.

Gary Hershorn, in the meantime, lined up a slew of pictures that featured the total moon resplendent alongside the Statue of Liberty, together with one well-timed composition that captured a passenger jet traversing the lunar disk.

While there is no doubt that August’s Sturgeon Moon placed on a dramatic present, subsequent month’s full moon part is about to be much more spectacular. Sept. 7-8 will see a total lunar eclipse sweep over the floor of Earth’s pure satellite tv for pc, briefly reworking it right into a crimson “blood moon” for skywatchers in Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa. You can sustain with all of the lunar eclipse motion with our lunar eclipse reside weblog.

Editor’s Note: If you seize a picture of the total Sturgeon Moon and need to share it with Space.com’s readers, then please ship your photograph(s), feedback, and your identify and placement to [email protected].