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

Full Moon in Pisces

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 24 August 2010 at 17:05 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 ♓ Pisces

Moon is passing about ∠11° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector.

It is Sturgeon Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Sturgeon of August 2010.

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 7.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1899".

Lunation 131 / 1084

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 131 of Meeus index or 1084 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.31 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 22 minutes and it is 53 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 22 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 47 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠349.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠349.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠4.6°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 05:51 about 14 days since last perigee on 10 August 2010 at 17:56 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 8 September 2010 at 04:00 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 406 390 km

This apogee Moon is 406 390 km (252 519 mi) away from Earth. It is 982 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 319 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

4 days after ascending node on 20 August 2010 at 12:13 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 4 September 2010 at 00:16 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 18 August 2010 at 17:07 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-24.929° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠24.807° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 September 2010 at 11:20 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

4 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first 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