Waning
Gibbous ♌ Leo
Moon phase for
Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
Full Moon 99% illuminated
Full Moon is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 99%. The 15 days old Moon is in ♋ Cancer.
* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 31 December 2009 at 19:13 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 ♋ Cancer
Moon is passing about ∠21° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Apparent angular diameter ∠1967"
Lunar disc appears visually 0.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1967" and ∠1951".
It is Wolf Moon
The Full Moon this days is the Wolf of January 2010.
Upcoming main Moon phases
- Last Quarter in Libra ♎ on 7 January 2010 at 10:40
- New Moon in Capricorn ♑ on 15 January 2010 at 07:11
- First Quarter in Taurus ♉ on 23 January 2010 at 10:53
- Full Moon in Leo ♌ on 30 January 2010 at 06:18
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 123 / 1076
The Moon is 15 days old. Earth's natural satellite is moving through the middle part of current synodic month. This is lunation 123 of Meeus index or 1076 from Brown series.
Synodic month length 29.8 days
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 9 minutes. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2010. It is 31 minutes shorter than the next lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increasing with the true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).
Lunation length longer than mean
The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 25 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 38 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
Lunar orbit position on
True anomaly ∠135.6°
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠135.6°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠164.3°.
Moon at perigee
Moon is at perigee at 20:36. It is 12 days after previous apogee on 20 December 2009 at 14:54 in ♒ Aquarius. Lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the next 15 days, until point of next apogee on 17 January 2010 at 01:40 in ♒ Aquarius.
Distance to Moon 358 684 km
This perigee Moon is 358 684 km (222 876 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 824 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 11 672 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon in descending node
Moon is in descending node in ♋ Cancer at 12:30 crossing the ecliptic from North to South to meet ascending node 13 days later on 14 January 2010 at 23:18 in ♑ Capricorn.
Draconic month
13 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♑ Capricorn, the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the cycle.
Moon after northern standstill
2 days since the previous standstill on 30 December 2009 at 10:09 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.787°, the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.796° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 January 2010 at 08:33 in ♐ Sagittarius.
Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy
The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.
