The Wolf Moon...

 

The first full moon of 2026 is also a Super Moon.  

It’s thought that January’s Full Moon came to be known as the Wolf Moon because wolves were more likely to be heard howling at this time.  It was traditionally believed that wolves howled due to hunger during winter, but we know today that isn’t accurate.

Howling and other wolf vocalizations are heard in the wintertime to locate pack members, reinforce social bonds, define territory, and coordinate hunting.

The full moon will be at its peak at 3:03 am Phoenix time (Mountain Standard Time) on Saturday morning; so, it will appear full Friday night and Saturday night. 

Another fitting name for this Full Moon is the Center Moon.  Used by the Assiniboine people of the Northern Great Plains, it refers to the idea that this Moon roughly marks the middle of the cold season.  Other traditional names for the January Moon emphasize the harsh coldness of the season: Cold Moon (Cree), Frost Exploding Moon (Cree), Freeze Up Moon (Algonquin), and Severe Moon (Dakota). Hard Moon (Dakota) highlights the phenomenon of the fallen snow developing a hard crust.  

All of these names should lead you to "colder than a Minnesota well-diggers gizzard."  It was 65º when I went out to get the photos.  In shirtsleeves. 

It was a bit of a challenge getting the shot.  Here's my final take...

 There is a thin hazy cloud layer.  Not enough to obscure the moon, but enough to fake out the autofocus on my hot-shit whiz-bang mirrorless camera.  The first few images were out of focus.  No problem - I used to be a professional: I switched the camera to manual focus.  The moon is pretty much "infinity" away.  The camera and lens didn't like that.  It didn't help that there was a contrail (from a passing jet) that left a streak across the moon...

I got that shot above reasonably sharp by moving the moon outside the focus area that was set in the camera.  But, using a normal technique resulted in soft images.  Then, I took the camera off "continuous focus" (where the camera is always trying to get the subject in focus) and set it for "single shot focus"... that was the solution with this odd thin cloud layer situation.  But - I got the shot.