Moonrise on the Seekonk (International Observe the Moon Night)
by Jim Hendrickson
International Observe the Moon night was observed on Sunday, October 5, 2025 at the annual Moonrise on the Seekonk event at Blackstone Park Conservancy on the East Side of Providence. This was the 7th consecutive year (except 2020) that Skyscrapers was invited to participate in the event, all of which have offered skies clear enough to see the full Moon rise over the Seekonk River. This year’s event was postponed from April 12, which was completely clouded out.
After an 80° sunny day, late Sunday afternoon skies remained 100% clear, with temperatures dipping into the low 70s with slight breeze off the water. Moonrise was at 5:34pm, while sunset was at 6:20pm, meaning the 98% illuminated Moon was rising into a daylight sky.
Francine Jackson and Jim Hendrickson arrived at about 5:30 to set up an Astroscan and a 3-inch refractor, and several other members of Skyscrapers arrived shortly after. Denise Turco came with Terry Turner, who brought a pair of 7x50 binoculars. Lisa and Jay Baccala came, and Jay generously offered to set up a second telescope Francine had available, a 4-inch Celestron refractor. Additionally, Jack Leonard and Kathy Babcock, and Christine Stevens joined us.
Setting up in the daytime allowed us to do a little birdwatching while waiting for the Moon to rise, including a pair of swans that spent much of the evening on the river bank near us. Even after moonrise, we continued to see many birds flying over the river, some even crossed in front of the Moon. A band played in the field across the street; many of their songs were Moon-themed.
One of the guests had brought a Unitron telescope that he was looking for help in learning to use, but because we had our hands full with the small number of telescopes we had, we invited him to bring to a future Seagrave Observatory open night. In all, about 50 visitors of all ages enjoyed viewing the Moon. We invited many of them to return to Seagrave or Ladd observatory on open nights.
A special treat this year was having Saturn located just 2° from the nearly full Harvest Moon being just 2° from Saturn. Although Neptune was also nearby, most people had left and the event was ending, before it was dark enough to locate it. By 7:30pm, we had packed up and were on our way home.
