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

Full Moon in Gemini

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 100%. The lunar cycle is 14 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 22 December 2018 at 17:49 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 ♊ Gemini

Moon is leaving the last ∠3° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♋ Cancer later.

It is Cold Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Cold of December 2018.

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 ∠1939"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1939" and ∠1951".

Lunation 234 / 1187

The Moon is 14 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 234 of Meeus index or 1187 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.76 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 8 minutes and it is 1 hour and 27 minutes shorter 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 24 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 39 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠116.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠116.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠149.4°.

Moon before perigee

9 days since point of apogee on 12 December 2018 at 12:25 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 24 December 2018 at 09:52 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 369 655 km

The Moon is 369 655 km (229 693 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 361 060 km (224 352 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 10 December 2018 at 17:57 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 December 2018 at 11:54 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon before northern standstill

13 days since the last southern standstill on 9 December 2018 at 11:12 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-21.539° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠21.550° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 December 2018 at 11:48 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♋ Cancer 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