Understand the moon phases and you can wager a pretty good guess for when the next full moon is just by looking up.

The moon's ascending node (the point in the sky where its orbit crosses the ecliptic from south to north) is moving westward ...

There are eight phases of the Moon beginning with the new Moon, followed by waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full Moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and finally waning crescent.

The first quarter further proceeds to expose more of the Moon in what is known as the Waxing Gibbous (Gibbous Moon) phase. This period leads to the Full Moon in a steadily growing light. The waxing ...