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

Full Moon in Scorpio

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 100%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 17 May 2011 at 11:09 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

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

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♏ Scorpio

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♐ Sagittarius later.

It is Flower Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Flower of May 2011.

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 ∠1936"

Lunar disc appears visually 2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1936" and ∠1897".

Lunation 140 / 1093

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 140 of Meeus index or 1093 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 12 minutes and it is 2 hours and 21 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 1 hour and 28 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 35 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠216.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠216.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠248.4°.

Moon after perigee

2 days since point of perigee on 15 May 2011 at 11:18 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 27 May 2011 at 09:58 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 370 177 km

The Moon is 370 177 km (230 017 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 006 km (251 659 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 6 May 2011 at 14:54 in ♊ Gemini 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 19 May 2011 at 09:03 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

11 days since the last northern standstill on 6 May 2011 at 03:54 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠23.421° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-23.403° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 May 2011 at 23:26 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius 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