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 99%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 26 December 2004 at 15:06 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠16° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

It is Cold Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Cold of December 2004.

Super spring tide

There is extremely high Full Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is heavy, because of the Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment and the near perigee.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1951".

Lunation 61 / 1014

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 61 of Meeus index or 1014 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.44 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 34 minutes and it is 9 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2004. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 10 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 59 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠345.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠345.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠1.4°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 19:15 about 14 days since last perigee on 12 December 2004 at 21:30 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 10 January 2005 at 10:07 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 406 488 km

This apogee Moon is 406 488 km (252 580 mi) away from Earth. It is 1 080 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 221 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

6 days after ascending node on 21 December 2004 at 06:51 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 4 January 2005 at 21:52 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 26 December 2004 at 14:10 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.905° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.938° at the point of next southern standstill on 9 January 2005 at 11:17 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus 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