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Here's When To Catch This Fall's 3 Supermoons

Astronomers rant about the "supermoon" label, but maybe it's time to just accept it. Here are the dates for this fall's supermoons.

Here's When To Catch This Fall's 3 Supermoons
Chris Isherwood / CC BY SA 2.0
By Steven Sparkman
SMS
August 20, 2015

If you like your full moons at their full mooniest, there's no moonier time than the supermoon. And there just so happen to be three supermoons this fall. (Video via JoanneQEscober / CC BY 2.0)

The recent trend of giving the closest full moons a special title each year doesn't seem to be going away. And yes, we've all heard that the pictures going around showing an absolutely enormous moon in the sky are fake. (Video via NASA)

And yes, we've heard astronomers complain about the term:

"If you have a 16-inch pizza, would you call that a super pizza compared with a 15-inch pizza?" Neil deGrasse Tyson asked. 

And yeah, fine, it's not even really a noticeable difference. Despite all of that, the supermoon is a good reminder just to go enjoy looking at the full moon every once in a while. So there are definitely worse trends. 

You know what else is cool? New moons — when the moon is shrouded in shadow — can technically be supermoons, too. Maybe that needs a special name. Sneaky moon? (Video via NASA)

This video includes images from slgckgc / CC BY 2.0, Marco Langbroek / CC BY SA 3.0, Chris Isherwood / CC BY SA 2.0, Uditha Wickramanayaka / CC BY 2.0 and Jay Tanner / CC BY SA 3.0.