Full Moon
Full MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Full Moon in Virgo

Full Moon on . Illuminated surface of the Moon is 100%. Lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 21 February 2008 at 03:31 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

Moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. It is visible all night and it is high in the sky around midnight.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠7° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

It is Snow Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Snow of February 2008.

Spring tide

There is high Full Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is strong, because of the Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1849"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1849" and ∠1940".

Lunation 100 / 1053

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 100 of Meeus index or 1053 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.56 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 30 minutes and it is 2 hours and 49 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 46 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 17 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠280°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠280° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠310.8°.

Moon before apogee

7 days since point of perigee on 14 February 2008 at 01:07 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 28 February 2008 at 01:27 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 387 582 km

The Moon is 387 582 km (240 832 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 6 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 442 km (251 309 mi).

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 20 February 2008 at 20:01 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 6 March 2008 at 06:52 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon after northern standstill

5 days since the last northern standstill on 16 February 2008 at 06:10 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.043° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.030° at the point of next southern standstill on 1 March 2008 at 08:03 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the middle to the last part of the lunar cycle.

Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy

The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

Parts of this Lunar Calendar are based on Planetary Ephemeris Data Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.Astropixels.com

Moon phase image credit to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov