This month’s full moon will fall on July 10. Buck Moon is its most common name for this month, for us in North America. But the July full moon has other exciting and wonderful characteristics. Watch and contemplate its path across the sky. Let it guide you, in your mind’s eye, to the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Join EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd at 12:15 p.m. CDT (17:15 UTC) on Monday, July 7, for more. Watch in the player above, or on YouTube.

It’s the Buck Moon

The crest of this month’s full moon will fall at 20:37 UTC (3:37 p.m. CDT) on July 10, 2025. For all of us on Earth, the moon will rise in the east just after sunset that evening, appear highest in the sky in the middle of the night, and set in the west at dawn.

The moon will look round and full on the nights on either side of full moon, too.

All the full moons have names. Popular nicknames for the July full moon include the Thunder Moon and Hay Moon … and there are lots more.

But Buck Moon is the most common name for us in North America for the July full moon. The reason is probably that fawns are born in late spring to early summer. Male deer start growing their antlers right away. The antlers take about 120 days, or about 4 months, to mature. And that means that, by July, for us in the Northern Hemisphere, the antlers of male deer are growing fast, sometimes as fast as several inches per day. They are fully mature in fall.

So, to honor the deer and the July full moon, the July full moon is the Buck Moon.

This July full moon mimics the January sun

All full moons – throughout the year – have their own unique characteristics, often related to their paths across the sky. The full moon’s nighttime path mimics the sun’s daytime path from six months ago, or in six months from now. So – for all of us on Earth – the July full moon will follow the path the sun took in January. And, for us in the Northern Hemisphere, the January sun arched low … so we see the July full moon riding low in the sky.

In fact, in most years, for us in the Northern Hemisphere, the path across the sky of July’s full moon is lower than any other, except the path of the full moon of June.

Even north of the Arctic Circle, the July full moon follows the path of the low Arctic sun in January. As seen from the Arctic, the July full moon appears above the horizon only briefly, or it never rises at all.

July full moon lies in Sagittarius in 2025

And what of our whole-Earth perspective on the moon?

The orderliness of the heavens is such that – in July – the full moon always lies in front of one of 2 constellations of the zodiac. Sometimes it’s in front of Capricornus the Sea Goat, which can be found in a dark sky in the shape of an arrowhead.

But, in most years, the July full moon appears in front of Sagittarius the Archer, which most stargazers nowadays know as a Teapot. In fact, the Teapot is one of the most noticeable asterisms – or patterns of stars – in the sky. The 2025 full moon glows in far eastern Sagittarius near its border with Capricornus.

Will you recognize the Teapot shape among stars near the moon on this night? Possibly not, because the full moon’s light will be washing the fainter stars from view. But you don’t need to see the Teapot to know it’s there … or to know that the Teapot stars lie far beyond the moon in space. As Earth orbits the sun, our planet’s night side points out on a shifting panorama of stars. And so the moon returns year after year to this quiet corner of the heavens, not by chance, but by the rhythms of Earth and sky.

Keep reading to learn more.

July full moon and the heart of the Milky Way

Note the charts above and below. The Teapot in Sagittarius marks the direction to the center of our Milky Way galaxy, the huge spiral galaxy containing our sun.

And in that direction – hidden from view by uncounted stars and dense clouds of dust – lies our Milky Way’s core, containing a supermassive black hole. Imagine it, as you stand looking at the moon! This colossal black hole was unknown until the 1970s. But it’s always been there, or at least for as long as Earth itself has existed. It’s called Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star). And it’s 4 million times the mass of our sun.

And so the July full moon becomes your guide to the galaxy’s hidden heart, at the very center of our home in space.

Bottom line: July’s full moon – the Buck Moon – falls on July 10. Like all July full moons, it rides low in the sky. It’s located in the direction of the center of the Milky Way galaxy.