Sky Watchers Ready! Pink Moon Peaks After Venus, Mercury, Mars Display This April

Sky watchers are preparing their telescopes and cameras for the April 2023 Pink Moon, which will peak immediately after Mercury, Venus, and Mars have paraded through the night sky.

This week's spectacular twilight show will feature the first full moon of spring alongside three brilliant planets.

The "Pink Moon," or April's full moon, will appear on Wednesday, April 5, through Thursday, April 6, in the early morning hours. Despite appearing bright and round for three days starting April 4, the full moon's exact peak will occur at 12:34 AM on April 6.

Mercury, Venus, Mars

A bonus is that, according to NASA, three of the five visible planets will also be in the sky on April 5 in the evening, just as the moon is about to reach its fullest.

Mercury will be near the west-northwest horizon, Venus will be about one-third of the way up seen between the western horizon and the sky's highest point, and Mars will be about two-thirds of the way up seen between the west-southwestern horizon and the sky's highest point. Venus will shine the brightest, followed by Mercury, then Mars.

Pink Moon

The Old Farmer's Almanac asserts that the April full moon's colorful moniker comes from the fact that it has traditionally coincided with the blooming of trees and flowers at this time of year, particularly a pink-blooming plant known as creeping phlox, moss phlox, or "moss pink."

Full moon names have been published by the Farmer's Almanac since the 1930s. These names were derived from a variety of sources, including European, Native American, and early Colonial American. Every full moon name, not just the precise astronomical full moon, was traditionally used to describe the whole lunar month in which the full moon occurred.

Full Moon in April

The Farmer's Almanac lists additional traditional names for the April full moon that make a reference to seasonal events. For example, Algonquins call this month's full moon as "Breaking Ice Moon," "Frog Moon" for the Cree, Dakota tribe calls it Moon When the Streams Are Again Navigable," or "Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs," Oglala tribe prefers "Moon of the Red Grass Appearing," Tlingits call it the "Budding Moon of Plants and Shrubs," and "Moon When the Ducks Come Back" for the Lakota population.

The Center for Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University claims that some Anishinaabe people in the Great Lakes region refer to the full moon in April as Popogami Giizis, which means Broken Snowshoe Moon.

If the skies are clear, all full moons are visible all night long. They rise along the eastern horizon around sunset. It then sets along the western horizon around sunrise. MLive Michigan advises confirming the local moonrise time for April 5 as well as the moment the moon will be at its fullest. For those hoping to see the full Pink Moon this week, it is best to look for a location outside that has an unobstructed view of the horizon.