Understand the moon phases and you can wager a pretty good guess for when the next full moon is just by looking up.

When they do, we have a lunar eclipse as Earth's shadow crosses the moon's face. Waning gibbous: More than half of the moon's face appears to be getting sunlight, but the amount is decreasing.

I pick out North America’s celestial highlights for the week ahead (which also apply to mid-northern latitudes in the northern hemisphere).

There are eight phases of the Moon beginning with the new Moon, followed by waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full Moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and finally waning crescent.