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

Full Moon in Pisces

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 19 September 2013 at 11:13 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 ♓ Pisces

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♓ Pisces tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♈ Aries later.

It is Harvest Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Harvest of September 2013.

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 ∠1896"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1896" and ∠1911".

Lunation 169 / 1122

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 169 of Meeus index or 1122 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.54 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 58 minutes and it is 43 minutes longer than the upcoming 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 14 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 49 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠249.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠249.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠285.3°.

Moon after perigee

3 days since point of perigee on 15 September 2013 at 16:34 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 27 September 2013 at 18:17 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 378 136 km

The Moon is 378 136 km (234 963 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 8 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 309 km (251 226 mi).

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 9 September 2013 at 17:29 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 22 September 2013 at 13:48 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 12 September 2013 at 18:30 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.685° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.599° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 September 2013 at 01:03 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio 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