The July 2025 full 'Buck Moon' will give stargazers an opportunity to appreciate several distinct quirks of orbital mechanics at work! For starters, it falls close to the summer solstice, a time of the year when the sun rides particularly high in the sky, while the moon tracks a low path over the southern horizon.

The full buck moon will reach its peak illumination on Thursday, July 10. It’s just one of this month’s celestial highlights.

The next full moon is Saturday, Aug. 9, and is sometimes called the Sturgeon Moon. It gets that name from when "The Great Lakes and Lake Champlain sturgeon were said to be most readily caught," per the Old Farmer's Almanac,