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

New Moon in Sagittarius

New Moon on . The illuminated surface of the Moon is 0%. Lunar cycle is 1 day young.

* The exact date and time of this New Moon phase is on 20 December 2006 at 14:01 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. It's part facing the Earth is completely in shadow.

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 ♐ Sagittarius

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

Wolf Moon after 14 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2007 after 14 days on 3 January 2007 at 13:57.

Spring tide

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

Apparent angular diameter

Lunar disc is not visible from Earth. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1853" and ∠1950".

New lunation 86 / 1039

At 14:01 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 86 of Meeus index or lunation 1039 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.58 days

The length of the lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 1 minute. It is 1 hour and 46 minutes longer than the next 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 16 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 47 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠276.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠276.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠308.6°.

Moon after apogee

6 days since point of apogee on 13 December 2006 at 18:55 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 28 December 2006 at 01:48 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 386 760 km

The Moon is 386 760 km (240 322 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 370 321 km (230 107 mi).

Moon before ascending node

7 days after descending node on 12 December 2006 at 15:19 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 26 December 2006 at 10:36 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon at southern standstill

At 13:40 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-28.378°. This is the year's southernmost lunar standstill of 2006. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠28.396° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 2 January 2007 at 11:57.

Draconic month

21 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy

The Moon is in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Moon-Earth 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