When to See the Full Moon in August
August’s Full Moon is at its most illuminated at 07:54 UTC on August 9, 2025.
The Moon always appears full in the days before and after peak illumination. Full Moon is the only phase where the Moon is up all night, with moonrise and moonset occurring around sunset and sunrise.
Two weeks after Full Moon, the New Moon on August 23 is a Black Moon—the third New Moon in an astronomical season with four New Moons.
Moon Phase Times August 2025
| Moon Phase | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| First Quarter | August 1 | 12:41 UTC |
| Full Moon | August 9 | 07:54 UTC |
| Third Quarter | August 16 | 05:12 UTC |
| New Moon | August 23 | 06:06 UTC |
| First Quarter | August 31 | 06:25 UTC |
The Moon & Planets in August
The Moon makes its regular round of close approaches to the planets during August, including:
Also, around August 16, the Moon has its latest close approach with the Pleiades star cluster. In July, a lunar occultation, where the Moon passed in front of the Pleiades, was visible from North America. In August, an occultation will be visible from parts of East Asia—as you can see in our Night Sky Map for Tokyo.
A Big Month for the First Quarter Moon
One of the interesting things about August 2025 is that it includes two First Quarter Moons in every time zone across the world—with an almost perfect fit.
It’s not unusual for the same Moon phase to occur twice during the same month. The Moon takes, on average, around 29.54 days to go through a complete cycle of phases, and most months have 30 or 31 days. So if a Moon phase falls at the start of a month, there’s a good chance it will come around again before the end of the month.
Things get more complicated if we want this to happen across every time zone. Depending on where we are in the world, if a Moon phase happens at the start of a month, it might still be the previous month in a time zone to the west of us. For example, when it’s 05:00 (5 am) in New York on August 1, it’s 23:00 (11 pm) on July 31 in Honolulu.
Likewise, if a Moon phase happens at the end of a month, it might already be the next month in a time zone to the east of us. Example: when it’s 19:00 (7 pm) in New York on August 31, it’s 09:00 (9 am) on September 1 in Sydney.
Read more about time zonesA Tight Squeeze
Time zones are defined as being a certain number of hours ahead of or behind UTC, the world’s time standard.
The most extreme time zones are found in the Pacific Ocean. Baker Island and Howland Island are regions of the US Minor Outlying Islands; their time zone is UTC-12. Meanwhile, the Kiritimati atoll, part of the Republic of Kiribati, is in the time zone UTC+14.
This means that squeezing two of the same Moon phases into one month for every time zone in the world can be a tight fit.
Little Room to Spare
Let’s look at the timings for First Quarter Moon in August 2025.
The first First Quarter Moon falls at 12:41 UTC on August 1. At our first extreme, for Baker Island and Howland Island, this is 00:41 (12:41 am) on August 1—a mere 41 minutes after the month has started.
The second First Quarter Moon falls at 06:25 UTC on August 31. At our other extreme, in Kiritimati, this is 20:25 (8:25 pm) on August 31—just 3½ hours before the month ends.
So August 2025 is a month with two First Quarter Moons, no matter which time zone we’re in. But with only a few hours or minutes to spare on either side.
A Longer than Average Cycle
The reason for the perfect fit is that this particular lunar cycle is longer than the average of 29.54 days. The period between the two First Quarter Moons of August 2025 is 29.74 days—nearly 5 hours longer than average.
The last time the same Moon phase occurred twice in the same month across all time zones was two years ago, with the two Full Moons of August 2023. However, in this previous case, the lunar cycle was much shorter: 29.29 days, around 6 hours shorter than average.
As a result, things had a looser fit in August 2023. On Baker Island and Howland Island, the first Full Moon was at 06:31 (6:31 am) on August 1—a more leisurely 6½ hours after the month began. In Kiritimati, the second Full Moon was at 15:35 (3:35 pm) on August 31—almost 8½ hours before the month’s end.
The Full Moon in August Is the Sturgeon Moon
August’s Full Moon is known as the Sturgeon Moon, named after the large number of sturgeon fish found in the Great Lakes in North America at this time of year. Other names for this Full Moon include Grain Moon, Corn Moon, Lynx Moon, and Lightning Moon.
Ancient cultures used Full Moon names like Flower Moon and Harvest Moon to track the months and seasons. These names are still in use today.