Full moon in September seems to have different meaning to different people in different culture; many cultures celebrate with gatherings, festivals, and rituals that are intricately attuned to September full moon.

As for the people of Lanna, Northern part of Thailand such as Chiang Rai, it’s called Peng Put, Wednesday with a full moon where people would wake up at midnight for midnight alms giving to a famous Buddhist monk named Pra Upakut; it is believed that every Peng Put day before dawn, this revered monk will rise from the bottom of the sea to accept food offerings from people and he’d bring good luck and wealth to those who respect and offering him food in midnight alms giving (read more here.)

As for the Chinese people, it’s the Moon Festival aka Mooncake or Mid-Autumn festival that falls on September 25th of this year, it’s the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is at its maximum brightness for the entire year, the Chinese celebrate this day with dances, feasting, moon gazing, and one of my favorites, eating mooncakes.

Then there’s the Harvest Moon which I recently heard from one of my co-workers, it’s the full moon in September that we’re seeing the past few nights that seems to be somehow bigger or brighter or yellower in color than other full moons. This is an illusion. The yellow or golden or orangish or reddish color of the moon shortly after it rises is a physical effect, which stems from the fact that, when you see the moon low in the sky, you are looking at it through a greater amount of atmosphere than when the moon is overhead. The atmosphere scatters the bluish component of white moonlight, which is really reflected sunlight, but allows the reddish component of the light to travel a straighter path to your eyes. Hence, all moons, stars, and planets look reddish when they are low in the sky.

All full moons rise around the time of sunset. However, although in general the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, as it moves in orbit around Earth, the Harvest Moon is special because around the time of this full moon, the time difference between moonrise on successive evenings is shorter than usual. In other words, the moon rises approximately 30 minutes later, from one night to the next, as seen from about 40 degrees N. or S. latitude, for several evenings around the full Harvest Moons. Thus, there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise around the time following these full moons. In times past, this feature of these autumn moons was said to help farmers working to bring in their crops because they could continue being productive by moonlight even after the sun had set, hence the name Harvest Moon. (Source)

I love gazing at full moons, and I think the September full moon is the prettiest in the night sky.