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 100%. The lunar cycle is 14 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 30 December 2020 at 03:28 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 is entering ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

It is Cold Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Cold of December 2020.

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 ∠1809"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1809" and ∠1951".

Lunation 259 / 1212

The Moon is 14 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 259 of Meeus index or 1212 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.53 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes and it is 1 hour and 21 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 same as the mean

The length of the current synodic month is equal to the mean synodic month length. It is %hours_to_shortest% and %minutes_to_shortest% longer than the 21st century's shortest and %hours_to_longest% and %minutes_to_longest% shorter than the 21st century's longest synodic months.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠30.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠30.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠53.8°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 24 December 2020 at 16:32 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 9 January 2021 at 15:39 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 396 291 km

The Moon is 396 291 km (246 244 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 390 km (228 286 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 28 December 2020 at 15:03 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 10 January 2021 at 20:15 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before northern standstill

13 days since the last southern standstill on 15 December 2020 at 22:23 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-24.879° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠24.868° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 December 2020 at 07:53 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini 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