August full moon 2022 guide: The Sturgeon Moon

The moon will officially become full on Aug. 11 at 9:35 p.m. EDT (0101 GMT), according to timeanddate.com. For New York City observers, the just-past-full moon will rise at 8:18 p.m., while the sun sets at 7:59 p.m. Eastern Time that day. The moon will make a close pass by Saturn that night as well, at 11:55 p.m. EDT. 

Full moons are exactly on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun — if you measured the angle across the sky from the sun to the moon it would be 180 degrees. If the moon passes through the Earth’s shadow we see a lunar eclipse, but that doesn’t happen each month because the moon’s orbit is inclined about 5 degrees to the plane of the Earth’s orbit, so the moon often “misses” the shadow (the next eclipse is slated for November 8).