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

Full Moon in Capricorn

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 18 July 2008 at 07:59 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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♒ Aquarius later.

It is Buck Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Buck of July 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 ∠1800"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1800" and ∠1888".

Lunation 105 / 1058

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 105 of Meeus index or 1058 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.33 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 54 minutes and it is 1 hour and 51 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 50 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 19 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠20.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠20.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠39.2°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 14 July 2008 at 04:13 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 29 July 2008 at 23:24 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 398 205 km

The Moon is 398 205 km (247 433 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 363 887 km (226 109 mi).

Moon before ascending node

12 days after descending node on 5 July 2008 at 15:53 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 20 July 2008 at 03:27 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon after southern standstill

2 days since the last southern standstill on 15 July 2008 at 15:03 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.566° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.598° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 July 2008 at 06:17 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final 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