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April is shaping up to be a good month for anyone who enjoys watching the night sky in Spain, kicking off with a full moon on Thursday April 2 and running through all four of the moon's main phases before the month is out.

 

 

The month's headline lunar event comes right at the start, with the full moon arriving in the early hours of April 2 at 4.12am. This one goes by the name of the Pink Moon, a title rooted in ancient North American traditions linked to the arrival of spring and the blossoming that comes with it.

 

Before you set your alarm and head outside expecting a rose-tinted sky though, it's worth knowing that the moon won't actually turn pink. It'll look much as it always does, although if you catch it low on the horizon you might notice it taking on a slightly orange hue, which is simply the effect of Earth's atmosphere bending the light.

 

 

The phases we see each month happen because the moon orbits the Earth while being lit by the Sun. As its position changes relative to ours, the portion we can see illuminated shifts gradually from nothing to fully lit and back again. The whole cycle takes around 29.5 days, which is why the dates shift slightly from one month to the next.

 

 

After the full moon on April 2, the month continues with the last quarter on April 10 at 6.52am, when the moon appears as a half-lit disc in the sky. By April 17 the new moon arrives at 1.52pm, at which point the moon sits roughly between the Earth and the Sun and becomes almost invisible. That makes it the best time of the month for stargazing, with the darker skies allowing fainter objects to become much more visible.

 

The cycle then closes out with the first quarter moon on April 24 at 4.31am, when roughly half the moon is illuminated once again.

 

It's one of the oldest reliable rhythms in the natural world, and April gives you a particularly good excuse to pay attention to it.