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

Full Moon in Aquarius

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99%. The lunar cycle is 14 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 31 August 2023 at 01:35 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♓ Pisces later.

It is Sturgeon Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Sturgeon of August 2023.

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 ∠1973"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1901".

Lunation 292 / 1245

The Moon is 14 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 292 of Meeus index or 1245 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.67 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 2 minutes and it is 13 minutes shorter 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 3 hours and 18 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 45 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠179.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠179.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠202.9°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 15:51 about 14 days since last apogee on 16 August 2023 at 11:55 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 12 September 2023 at 15:42 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 357 182 km

This perigee Moon is 357 182 km (221 943 mi) away from Earth. It is 5 326 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 13 174 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 21 August 2023 at 16:23 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 3 September 2023 at 07:44 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 26 August 2023 at 20:22 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.095° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.168° at the point of next northern standstill on 8 September 2023 at 13:18 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries 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