As the summer solstice was last night (23:59 20 June 2008 UTC; 7:59 pm EDT on the 20th locally), today, the twenty-first of June, is the first full day of summer in Earth's northern hemisphere. And a few days earlier, on the 18th, the Moon was full.
So have you seen it lately? The full or near-full moon, that is? The full moon rises around sunset, and it's usually pretty noticeable.
You may not have. As noted above, we're near extrema of both the Sun and Moon. The Sun at the summer solstice is as high as it gets in the sky. The full Moon's path in the sky is about as low as it gets -- the full Moon's path is, in a rough sense, out of phase with the Sun's. (I'm not going to get into why this is, but please do note that I say "full" here.) And with the full Moon's path being so low, it's also much shifted to the south.
You've probably noticed the other side of this phenomenon. Think of full moons you've seen when it's getting cold -- say late fall and early winter: November, December, and January. They were way up high in the sky, weren't they? And the Sun's path is very low, which is why it's locally -- hemispherically, in a sense -- cold then.
If you'd like to look for the moon, now a few days past full, Weather Underground's Durham, N.C. information gives a local rising time tonight of 10:57 pm. That's on an artificial horizon with no hills or trees. It's also south of southeast -- way farther south than we're used to. Depending on your horizon to the southeast, it may be midnight or later before you see the moon come up.
This year I couldn't afford a copy of Guy Ottewell's wonderful Astronomical Calendar, so some of my event times come from the United States Naval Observatory. Others come from the Weather Underground. And this really isn't a companion piece to "Where's the Sun?", but I think I'll link to that anyway. :)
Edit: this is probably also as good a time as any to link to my post about why your evening party should be sometime over the next couple weeks.
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