October 2027 Moon Phases

October 2027 has no eclipse, but its Full Moon carries a name worth explaining: this is the Hunter’s Moon, not the Harvest Moon, because 2027’s Harvest Moon already happened in September. The month also features two meteor showers with almost opposite personalities. Here’s what’s happening and when.

Why October’s Full Moon is the Hunter’s Moon this year

The Hunter’s Moon is simply the first Full Moon to follow the Harvest Moon, which is itself defined as the Full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox. That definition means the Harvest Moon can land in either September or October depending on the year — in 2027 it fell on September 15, so October’s Full Moon takes the Hunter’s Moon name instead. The name’s own history is mixed: some sources trace it to Anglo-Saxon tradition in England, describing the point in the season when hunters and farmers prepared for winter after the harvest, while others tie it to Algonquian seasonal naming in North America. Most likely both influences shaped the name as it’s used today.

Other names recorded for this Full Moon include the Travel Moon and the Dying Grass Moon, along with the Sanguine or Blood Moon — a reference either to the hunting season or to the reddening autumn leaves, depending on the source. That “Blood Moon” nickname is worth separating from the unrelated use of the same term for a totally eclipsed Full Moon, which gets its reddish color from a completely different cause: sunlight bending through Earth’s atmosphere during a lunar eclipse, not the season.

Like the Harvest Moon before it, the Hunter’s Moon also has a genuine optical quirk: because of the shallow angle the Moon’s path makes with the horizon in autumn, it can rise only about 20 to 30 minutes later each night around this Full Moon at many northern latitudes, instead of the usual 50 minutes or so — an effect most pronounced well north of the equator. That gives several evenings in a row with bright moonlight arriving right around sunset — traditionally useful for anyone working late into the evening outdoors. For the fuller history and a look at how these names vary across different traditions, see our Hunter’s Moon guide.

Two very different meteor showers light up October

The Draconids, active only briefly from October 6 to 10, reach their maximum overnight into the early morning of October 9, around 3:00 AM EDT. They’re an oddity among meteor showers: their radiant, in the constellation Draco, stands highest right at nightfall, so the evening of October 8, ahead of the maximum, is actually a good time to watch too, alongside the predicted peak itself. Most years the Draconids are quiet, with the IMO’s nominal rate at around 5 meteors an hour, but the shower has a real history of surprise outbursts — including a storm in 1946 with over a thousand meteors an hour — so it’s always worth a glance even in a typically slow year. The meteors come from debris shed by comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner.

The Orionids are a steadier, more reliable shower, active from early October into November with a broad peak around the night of October 21–22. Under dark skies they can produce roughly 20 meteors an hour, and they’re visible from both hemispheres, with the best rates in the hours after midnight when the radiant, in the constellation Orion, climbs highest. Fittingly, the Orionids are made of debris from the same source as May’s Eta Aquariids: Halley’s Comet, which Earth’s orbit intersects twice a year. This year a waning gibbous Moon is in the sky for much of the peak night, which will wash out some of the fainter meteors, though the brighter ones should still cut through.