The August Full Moon is most commonly known as the Full Sturgeon Moon (sturgeon are most readily caught in this month), but also known as: the Full Red Moon, Green Corn Moon, or Grain Moon.

A friend of mine from photography club was reminding us all last month — don’t forget to take a photo of the full moon. He proceeded to reel off a bunch of numbers: rising and setting times, altitude and azimuth. I don’t know what everyone else thought, but I kind of blanked it out.

But his suggestion did bring to mind the Moon Viewing that will be occurring on Saturday night at the Japanese Tea Garden (a.k.a. Japanese Garden and Tea House) in the Arboretum. I’ve never been able to fathom why the japanese tea garden exists as part of the Seattle Parks and Rec properties, and not as part of the arboretum. Personally, I think it’s rather unkind that the arboretum doesn’t appear to provide a link to the japanese tea garden page, even though the Seattle parks and rec people have kindly provided a link back to the arboretum website. It would be a good reminder to check both sites for special events. As it was, I overheard someone talking about it, went to the arboretum site (couldn’t find anything), did a google search (couldn’t find any details), and finally called the arboretum, who said, “oh, you need to call Seattle Parks and Rec.” Buh?

But that’s beside the point. Access to the garden at night is offered for a $10 fee, and it seems like a mightily cheap fee to pay, in order to see luminaries and floating boats. Tea and snacks are offered for another additional fee.