supermoon

If the moon seemed especially big and bright Saturday night -- that's because it was.

The moon was at the point on its elliptical path called perigee, the point where passes closest to Earth. At this point, it is 31,000 miles to closer than the opposite side of its orbit, or apogee.

While the full moon appears largest just after it rises, it officially reached its closest point to Earth at 11:34 pm. Exactly one minute later, the moon, Earth and sun line up and this allows the moon to achieve its full brilliance -- 30-percent brighter and 14-percent larger than any other full moon this year. 

Here framed by spruce boughs, the brilliance of the full moon will have drowned out all but the brightest fireballs of the Aquarid meteor shower, also on tap Saturday night, according to NASA.

Officially, this year's supermoon was "eclipsed" by the supermoon of March 2011, which passed by Earth some 250 miles closer than this year's.