August full moon 2025 captivates skywatchers worldwide as Sturgeon Moon lights up the sky (photos)

August's full moon, known as the 'Sturgeon Moon' made a splash when it leapt above the southern horizon on Aug. 9 earlier this week, illuminating the summer sky mere days before the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

The Sturgeon Moon gets its name from the large lake fish that were once abundant around this time of year and which served as an important source of food for several Native American tribes. It's also sometimes known as the 'Red Moon', on account of the ruddy hue it has been known to adopt in the summer haze, while the Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes knew it as the 'Ricing Moon' and used it as a sign that it was time to bring in the harvest.

Each full moon is a spectacular sight to the naked eye and a prized target for astrophotographers worldwide, who bent their knowledge and skill to the task of capturing the majesty of August's fully-lit lunar disk.

Some photographers aimed their lenses at the moon during moonrise, capturing its dramatic yellow-orange glow as Earth's atmosphere scattered the bluer wavelengths of sunlight in a process known as Rayleigh Scattering. Others snapped the moon as it tracked a low path through the summer sky, recording spectacular detail on the lunar surface, while lining up impressive shots that blended the ancient and the new in a single frame.

Read on to see a selection of some of the best August full moon photos from around the world.

The August 2025 full Sturgeon Moon in pictures

This stunning view of the full Sturgeon Moon suspended between New York's iconic skyscrapers was taken by Nazli Zeynep Karabulut on the night of Aug. 9, as the lunar disk rose over New York and was temporarily speared by the point of the Empire State Building.

Ismael Adnan Yaqoob captured the moon thousands of miles from New York as it drifted close to the lights of an amusement park in the city of Mosul, Iraq on the same night (Aug. 9).

This stunningly detailed high-contrast view of the lunar disk was captured on Aug. 9 by Tayfun Coskun as the moon hung above Mt. Hamilton in San Jose, California. Dark lunar seas can be seen scarring the lunar surface alongside sweeping mountain ranges and prominent impact sites, including the majestic form of Tycho Crater, which dominates the lower region of the moon's disk.

Photographer Riccardo De Luca captured a beautiful shot of the orange-red Sturgeon Moon as it rose above the historic Colosseum in Rome, with the towering Arch of Titus illuminated to the right of the image.

Isa Terli's moody composition featured a potent mix of the old and the new by capturing the red form of the rising Sturgeon Moon as it hung between the supports of the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey.

This image of the yellow full moon rising near the ancient temple of Poseidon in southern Greece was captured on Aug. 9, by photographer Costas Baltas, close to the city of Athens.

A spotlight shone from the tip of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, appears to pick out the orange form of the rising Sturgeon Moon in this dramatic composition by Mustafa Yalcin, also taken on Aug. 9.

Lorenzo Di Cola snapped a shot of the lunar disk rising over the ruins of Rocca Calascio on Aug. 8, in the runup to the full moon from the Province of L'Aquila, Abruzzo in Italy.

Photographer Yasin Akgul captured the Sturgeon Moon warped by atmospheric disturbance on Aug. 9, as it loomed above the rooftops of Istanbul, Turkey, close to the famous Galata Tower.

Faisal Bashir took a stunningly detailed shot of the lunar disk on Aug. 8, ahead of the full moon phase, framed by the delicate silhouettes of overhanging leaves.

Photographer Max Guliani also posted a series of impressive moonrise shots to his X account, showing the full lunar disk looming large between the iconic skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan.

Gary Hershorn, meanwhile, lined up a slew of shots that featured the full moon resplendent alongside the Statue of Liberty, including one well-timed composition that captured a passenger jet traversing the lunar disk.

While there's no doubt that August's Sturgeon Moon put on a dramatic show, next month's full moon phase is set to be even more spectacular. Sept. 7-8 will see a total lunar eclipse sweep over the surface of Earth's natural satellite, temporarily transforming it into a red "blood moon" for skywatchers in Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa. You can keep up with all the lunar eclipse action with our lunar eclipse live blog.

Editor's Note: If you capture an image of the full Sturgeon Moon and want to share it with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.