The Supermoon Show: The Biggest of the Year on November 5th

On November 5th, thanks also to the good weather conditions that this strange November is offering us, we will be able to admire the largest Moon of 2025, a phenomenon that everyone is now calling a “supermoon” .

It's a spectacle the sky offers us when the Moon is at perigee, that is, at its closest point to Earth , and also at full moon. Being closer, we see it larger and also brighter—not by much, but enough to appreciate the phenomenon. Our satellite orbits us in an orbit that is not circular, but elliptical, with its closest point to Earth at 362,000 kilometers, while its furthest is 406,000 kilometers. The difference in apparent size is therefore small, on the order of 10%, difficult for the untrained eye to appreciate, but the difference in brightness is certainly noticeable, and it's a beautiful spectacle. In this case, the Moon will be 7% larger than average, but a full 16% brighter; therefore, even the untrained eye can appreciate it.

Americans call the moons that fall in a year with names that recall nature and agriculture, this November moon is the Beaver Moon, since it is full roughly when beavers, in the USA, begin to build their dens to spend the winter.

The best time to observe this celestial event is immediately after sunset, when the Moon rises above the horizon and appears larger, due to a well-known effect of perception. This effect then fades as it rises in the sky. It will also appear reddish, due to the presence of dust in the atmosphere, which scatters the blue light and lets the red light through. So, it's a good idea to look for it in the early evening and follow it for a few minutes, observing it and possibly photographing it with a smartphone, with or without a surrounding landscape or near a monument, but always with a very steady hand if you don't have a tripod.

The November sky will then give us another show, weather permitting: on November 17th and 18th we will be able to see the shooting stars called Leonids , generated by the dust grains left by the passage of the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, entering our atmosphere.