This weekend’s full moon, the Fisherman Moon, appears in the southern zodiacal constellation Sagittarius. The moon stays low in the southern sky throughout the night. It rises in the southeast after sun set and sets in the southwest at dawn.

This is one of the smallest full moons of the year and it will be hard to notice. The moon is in apogee on Thursday, farther from the Earth than at any other time in its 28-day orbit around the Earth.

Next Thursday night, the gibbous moon rises later in the evening. The moon is in the zodiacal constellation Aquarius and not far from the distant and barely visible planet Neptune. To see Neptune, you need at least a pair of binoculars. Even then it is hard to differentiate the planet from another faint star. But with a start chart that depicts the movement of the distant planet, you should be able to spot the distant planet — Neptune’s color is not easy to ignore. Neptune has a bluish green color unlike other stars in the area.