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

Full Moon in Cancer

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 31 December 2009 at 19:13 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠21° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

It is Wolf Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Wolf of January 2010.

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 ∠1967"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1967" and ∠1951".

Lunation 123 / 1076

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 123 of Meeus index or 1076 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.8 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 9 minutes and it is 31 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2010. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 25 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 38 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠135.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠135.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠164.3°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 20:36 about 12 days since last apogee on 20 December 2009 at 14:54 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 17 January 2010 at 01:40 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 358 684 km

This perigee Moon is 358 684 km (222 876 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 824 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 11 672 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon in descending node

Moon is in descending node in ♋ Cancer at 12:30 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 14 January 2010 at 23:18 in ♑ Capricorn.

Moon after northern standstill

2 days since the last northern standstill on 30 December 2009 at 10:09 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.787° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.796° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 January 2010 at 08:33 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn 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