Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♊ Gemini later.
5 days after Full Moon
Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 4 September 2009 at 16:03.
Harvest Moon before 5 days
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2009 after 23 days on 4 October 2009 at 06:10.
Neap tide
There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.
Apparent angular diameter ∠1921"
Lunar disc appears visually 0.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1921" and ∠1906".
Lunation 119 / 1072
The Moon is 20 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 119 of Meeus index or 1072 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 43 minutes and it is 2 hours and 6 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 shorter than mean
The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 1 minute shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 8 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
Lunar orbit details for
True anomaly ∠20.3°
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠20.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠39.3°.
Moon before perigee
10 days since point of apogee on 31 August 2009 at 11:04 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 16 September 2009 at 07:55 in ♌ Leo.
The Moon is 373 045 km(231 799 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 364 054 km(226 213 mi).
Moon before descending node
9 days after ascending node on 1 September 2009 at 03:18 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 14 September 2009 at 20:56 in ♋ Cancer.
12 days since the last southern standstill on 28 August 2009 at 20:17 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.391° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠26.289° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 September 2009 at 04:36 in ♊ Gemini.
In 8 days on 18 September 2009 at 18:44 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy alignment.