Check out the 'super moon' tonight

With skies mostly clear tonight across the Charlotte region, you'll get another chance to see the so-called "super moon."

That's the term given the moon when it is full at the time of its closest monthly approach to the earth. Scientists at NASA say the "super moon" can be 30 percent brighter than a regular full moon.

Interestingly, we'll have three consecutive months of a "super moon," with upcoming events on Aug. 10 and Sept. 9.

The full moon actually was Friday night and Saturday morning, but we'll still have a moon that's 95 percent full tonight.  The moon is scheduled to rise at 8:44 p.m. and set at 7:43 a.m., which will put it high in the sky for the overnight hours.

The moon's orbit is not a perfect circle around the earth.  Rather, it's an elliptical orbit, and when the moon is at its closest approach (called the "perigee"), it's about 32,000 miles closer than at the farthest point ("apogee").

As I said ... the weather apparently will cooperate Saturday night and Sunday morning, and it should be easy to check out the "super moon."  Some fog could develop in the hour or two before sunrise Sunday, but otherwise, it should be good viewing weather.