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

Full Moon in Libra

Full Moon on . Illuminated surface of the Moon is 99%. Lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 6 April 2012 at 19:19 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 in ♎ Libra

Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♏ Scorpio later.

It is Pink Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Pink of April 2012.

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 ∠1969"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1969" and ∠1916".

Lunation 151 / 1104

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 151 of Meeus index or 1104 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.7 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 41 minutes and it is 12 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2012. 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 3 hours and 57 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 6 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠142.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠142.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠168.7°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 16:59 about 12 days since last apogee on 26 March 2012 at 06:04 in ♉ Taurus 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 22 April 2012 at 13:49 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 358 314 km

This perigee Moon is 358 314 km (222 646 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 194 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 12 042 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 28 March 2012 at 00:19 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 10 April 2012 at 00:47 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

9 days since the last northern standstill on 28 March 2012 at 23:40 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.890° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.814° at the point of next southern standstill on 10 April 2012 at 21:03 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

24 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius 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