Don't look for the moon this Mid-Autumn Festival - you won't see it

A celestial quirk will deny Mid-Autumn Festival revellers the chance to gaze at a full moon next month.

While the festival, which falls on September 8, sometimes coincides with the full moon, this year that lunar phase takes place the next day, a public holiday.

And despite September 9 boasting a supermoon - when the moon is at its closest orbit to the Earth - even then, the city is set to be disappointed.

The exact moment of the full moon - when it is fully illuminated by the sun, unimpeded by Earth's shadow - will take place at 9.38am, well before it rises over the Hong Kong skyline.

"The full moon will take place in the morning and at that time it will be below Hong Kong's horizon," the Observatory's senior scientific officer Mok Hing-yim said yesterday.

On September 8, the Observatory forecasts that the moon will rise at 5.51pm and set at 6.02am.

"The moon will still be big and bright over the festival; it's just that people won't be able to see the full moon this year," said Mok.