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

Full Moon in Sagittarius

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 20 May 2008 at 02:11 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 is entering ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

It is Flower Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Flower of May 2008.

Super spring tide

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

Apparent angular diameter ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1896".

Lunation 103 / 1056

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 103 of Meeus index or 1056 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.29 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 4 minutes and it is 8 minutes longer 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 5 hours and 40 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 29 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠349.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠349.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠4.4°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 14:27 about 14 days since last perigee on 6 May 2008 at 03:22 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 3 June 2008 at 13:08 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 406 404 km

This apogee Moon is 406 404 km (252 528 mi) away from Earth. It is 996 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 305 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 12 May 2008 at 06:37 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 26 May 2008 at 21:45 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon before southern standstill

12 days since the last northern standstill on 8 May 2008 at 01:51 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.625° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-27.542° at the point of next southern standstill on 22 May 2008 at 04:00 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

20 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