Harvest supermoon to light up the sky Monday night

On Monday night, skywatchers will see the third supermoon of the summer, which also happens to be the Harvest Moon.

On the East Coast, look up at the sky at 9:38 p.m., and on the West Coast, 6:38 p.m., in order to see the supermoon completely full.

The moon has reached its perigee, the point in its orbit when it is closest to Earth, and that is why it looks bigger. When it is at its perigee, the moon is 31,000 miles closer to Earth than at apogee, the point in its orbit when it is as far away as it gets. Earlier this summer, supermoons appeared on July 12 and August 10.

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It's a Harvest Moon this time around because it is the full moon closest to the Northern Hemisphere's fall equinox on September 22, the Los Angeles Times reports. The name comes from the fact that farmers were given a tiny bit of extra light as they harvested crops.