The April full moon is also known as the Full Flower Moon in North America, and is the first full moon following the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.
I was able to capture the shot above in a clear sky. The visible features of the lunar surface and the Man in the Moon is clearly visible in the shot, as is Tycho Crater, one of the largest craters on the visible side of Luna facing our Earth.
Tonight's Full Flower Moon arrives just in time for the launch of NASA's Artemis II mission, which successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Merritt Island, Florida at approximately 6:35 p.m. EDT -- just under four hours before the full moon reached its peak illumination here in South Carolina at 10:15 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 1st.
The Artemis II mission is the first crewed U.S. mission to the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in December of 1972. Should all go according to plan, the four person crew of the Orion spacecraft (U.S. Astronauts Commander Reid Weisman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina H. Koch, and Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen) will leave Earth's orbit this weekend -- the first human beings to do so in 53 years -- and arrive in orbit around the Moon on Monday, April 6th. Godspeed astronauts!
