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

Full Moon in Aries

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 28 September 2015 at 02:50 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠10° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

It is Harvest Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Harvest of September 2015.

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 ∠1972"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1915".

Lunation 194 / 1147

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 194 of Meeus index or 1147 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.73 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 24 minutes and it is 17 minutes shorter 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 4 hours and 40 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 23 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠169.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠169.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠192.9°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 01:46 about 13 days since last apogee on 14 September 2015 at 11:28 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 11 October 2015 at 13:17 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 356 877 km

This perigee Moon is 356 877 km (221 753 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest perigee of 2015. It is 5 631 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 452 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 27 September 2015 at 21:04 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 11 October 2015 at 10:54 in ♎ Libra.

Moon before northern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 21 September 2015 at 12:02 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.134° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.140° at the point of next northern standstill on 3 October 2015 at 23:55 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

14 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra 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