I went out on a farm field near the intersection of Harlem Avenue & Sauk Trail Road near Frankfort, Illinois on the evening of Friday, December 12, 2008 to capture some photos of the full moon. This full moon was the biggest one of the year as it reached its closest point to the Earth.Earth, the moon and the sun are all bound together by gravity, which keeps us going around the sun and keeps the moon going around us as it goes through phases. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days. But, the orbit is not a perfect circle. The moon's average distance from us is about 238,855 miles. On this evening it was just 221,560 miles away. It was 14% bigger in the sky and 30% brighter than some other full moons during the year, according to NASA.Tides were higher on this night as well. Earth's oceans are pulled by the gravity of the moon and the sun. So when the moon is closer, tides are pulled higher.