Waning
Gibbous ♋ Cancer
Moon phase for
Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
Full Moon 100% illuminated
Full Moon is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 100%. The 14 days old Moon is in ♊ Gemini.
* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 12 December 2008 at 16:37 UTC.
Moon phases for next 7 days
Saturday Sat
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Tuesday Tue
Wednesday Wed
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Moon phase and lunation details
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.
Moon in ♊ Gemini
Moon is passing about ∠18° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Apparent angular diameter ∠1972"
Lunar disc appears visually 1.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1949".
It is Cold Moon
The Full Moon this days is the Cold of December 2008.
Upcoming main Moon phases
- Last Quarter in Virgo ♍ on 19 December 2008 at 10:29
- New Moon in Capricorn ♑ on 27 December 2008 at 12:23
- First Quarter in Aries ♈ on 4 January 2009 at 11:56
- Full Moon in Cancer ♋ on 11 January 2009 at 03:27
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.
Lunation 110 / 1063
The Moon is 14 days old. Earth's natural satellite is moving through the middle part of current synodic month. This is lunation 110 of Meeus index or 1063 from Brown series.
Synodic month length 29.81 days
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 28 minutes. It is 5 minutes shorter than the next lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decreasing with the 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 6 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 19 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
Lunar orbit position on
True anomaly ∠161.9°
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠161.9°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠186.6°.
Moon at perigee
Moon is at perigee at 21:37. It is 13 days after previous apogee on 29 November 2008 at 16:55 in ♐ Sagittarius. Lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the next 14 days, until point of next apogee on 26 December 2008 at 17:50 in ♐ Sagittarius.
Distance to Moon 356 568 km
This perigee Moon is 356 568 km (221 561 mi) away from Earth. This is the year's closest perigee of 2008. It is 5 940 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 143 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon before descending node
9 days after ascending node on 3 December 2008 at 04:47 in ♒ Aquarius. The Moon is located north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days, until the lunar orbit crosses from North to South in descending node on 15 December 2008 at 23:02 in ♌ Leo.
Draconic month
9 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♒ Aquarius, the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the cycle.
Moon at northern standstill
At 18:39 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠27.024°. This is the year's northernmost lunar standstill of 2008. Over the next 13 days the lunar orbit is going to extend southward to face maximum declination of ∠-27.026° at the point of next standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 26 December 2008 at 08:03.
Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy
The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.
