Full Moon Dates 2042

This page lists every full moon date in 2042. Full moon is the geometry in which Earth sits roughly between the Sun and Moon, so the near side is fully illuminated—about 100% lit as seen from Earth. The list is a year-scale catalog, not a month grid and not a live tonight card: one row per full moon so event teams, observatories, and photographers can see the whole 2042 sequence at once.

Most years have twelve full moons because the synodic month is slightly shorter than a typical civil month stacked twelve times. Some years have thirteen when an extra full moon fits inside the January–December window. This page reports the count that actually occurs in 2042 rather than a memorized “always twelve.”

How to use the 2042 full moon list

Open any date to load that day’s moon phase page for the selected city, including illumination, moon age, and approximate moonrise and moonset. The list itself is timezone-agnostic in the sense that it names the civil date of the full-moon instant as commonly tabulated; the city page then applies local rise and set. If a marketing copy needs “Saturday night,” confirm the weekday on the date page rather than assuming the listed date is the evening people will look up.

Full moons often rise near sunset, which is why golden-hour photographers treat these nights as a paired solar–lunar event. The pairing is approximate. Latitude, longitude, and the Moon’s declination shift rise by tens of minutes. Use the city view on a chosen row when the shot needs the Moon on the horizon, not merely a date on a poster.

Twelve versus thirteen full moons

A “blue moon” in the modern calendar sense is a second full moon inside one civil month, or—in an older seasonal definition—a third full moon in a season that contains four. Neither definition is an astronomical class of object; the Moon is not a different color. This year page simply lists dates. If 2042 contains thirteen full moons, the extra row is the entire story: an extra instant, not a special physical type.

Do not schedule around folklore names (wolf, snow, harvest, hunter) as if they were ISO standards. Those names vary by region and tradition. For operations, the civil date and the city rise time are the durable facts. Folklore can decorate a poster after the date is locked.

Exact instant versus the night people remember

The exact full moon is a UTC moment when the phase angle is nearest 180°. Calendar lists usually show the local calendar date of that moment. A full moon at 01:00 local time is easy to remember as “last night” if someone was outside after dusk. When a livestream or a park permit names a clock time, convert the instant into the event’s time zone instead of copying a social-media graphic that omitted the zone.

Illumination near 100% lasts more than one night. The nights before and after a listed date still look “full” to casual viewers. If the goal is maximum illumination, prefer the listed date. If the goal is a Moon that clears a skyline at a chosen hour, the adjacent dates may compose better even if they are a percent or two below peak.

Eclipses, perigee, and apparent size

Lunar eclipses can only happen near full moon, when the Moon can pass through Earth’s shadow. This list does not certify which 2042 full moons are eclipses. Pair the dates with notices from a national observatory or NASA-style almanac when a penumbral, partial, or total lunar eclipse is expected. A listed full moon without an eclipse is still a normal bright night.

Apparent size changes because the Moon’s distance changes. Perigee (closest) and apogee (farthest) are distance events, not phase events. A so-called supermoon is a full moon near perigee; a micromoon is a full moon near apogee. Check moon distance when a headline cares about size. The year list still answers “which dates are full,” which is a different question from “which full moon looks largest.”

Event, retail, and park planning

Moonlight walks, night markets, and “full moon yoga” copy need a date that is honest in the event’s city. Pick a row, open the date, and verify moonrise is early enough for the published start. If the Moon rises two hours after gates open, guests will walk in darkness first. That is a programming choice, not an error in the list—but it should be an intentional choice.

Retail promotions that print a 2042 full-moon calendar should treat the list as the source of dates and then overlay store hours and 2042 US holidays so a full moon on a closure night is not advertised as an in-store event. The Moon does not move a holiday. The holiday can still empty a parking lot on a photogenic night.

Photography around listed dates

A rising full moon near sunset is a classic alignment: warm sky, large-looking disc, and a landscape still holding color. The “large” effect is mostly psychological when the Moon sits next to terrestrial objects; the angular size change from perigee is real but modest. Scout a sightline to the east-southeast (northern mid-latitudes) a day earlier. Compare moonrise with sunrise and sunset on the chosen date so the solar disc is not still too bright for the exposure you want.

After midnight the full moon is high and harsh for portraits. If the brief is “romantic moonlight,” the hours after moonrise are usually kinder than 02:00. If the brief is “light a quarry or a field for a night hike,” later hours are fine. The year list only gives dates; the hour still belongs to the city rise/set table.

What this year page is not

It is not the eight-name gallery, not a day-by-day month grid, and not a per-phase upcoming table for crescents or quarters. Return to the moon phases hub for those zooms, or use today’s moon when the question is the current disc rather than the 2042 full-moon roster.