Incredible Images Capture July's Buck Moon

Snappers managed to capture some incredible images of the weekend's Buck Moon.

July's full moon - also known as the Buck Moon - was clear in the skies across the weekend and coincided with a partial penumbral eclipse, which is the term used when the moon grazes past the Earth's shadow creating a darker area.

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However, it wasn't easy to see with the naked eye, with NASA warning it was 'difficult or impossible to notice without instrumentation'.

Astrophysicist Fred Espenak echoed those views, telling spaceweather.com: "Because the Moon will only pass one third of the way into Earth's penumbral shadow during the July 4/5 lunar eclipse, it will not be visible to the naked eye.

"Digital photography can reveal the subtle shading if the contrast of the image is greatly increased."

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Experts reckon that to see the visual effect of a penumbral eclipse you'll need around 70 percent of the moon's diameter to be in the Earth's shadow - whereas the one we saw last weekend was around 35 percent.

But just because we weren't able to spot the penumbral eclipse doesn't mean the full moon didn't look pretty bloody spectacular over the weekend, with many photographers whipping out their cameras to get a shot.

According to NASA, the July full moon gets its name as the time of year when the new antlers of buck deer begin to push out of their foreheads.

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It's can also be referred to as the Thunder Moon because we generally see plenty of thunderstorms in the early summer.

Next month's full moon is Sturgeon Moon, followed by the Corn Moon in September, October's moon is known as the Hunter's Moon, while November's is the adorably named Beaver Moon and, for obvious reasons, December's full moon is the Cold Moon.

Luna-lovers and werewolves might be interested to know that August's full moon - the Sturgeon Moon - will be making an appearance on 2 and 3 August.

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And if that's not exciting enough moon news for you, there's a Blue Moon coming in October.

The rare occurrence happens where there's two full moons within a calendar month so on 1 October we'll see the Harvest Moon and then on Halloween the Blue Moon.

Topics: Interesting, space

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

@ClaireReid19