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

Full Moon in Gemini

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 100%. The lunar cycle is 14 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 28 November 2012 at 14:46 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 ♊ Gemini

Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.

It is Beaver Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Beaver of November 2012.

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 9.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1945".

Lunation 159 / 1112

The Moon is 14 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 159 of Meeus index or 1112 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 28 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 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 ∠351.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠351.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠6.8°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 19:35 about 14 days since last perigee on 14 November 2012 at 10:21 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 12 December 2012 at 23:14 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 406 366 km

This apogee Moon is 406 366 km (252 504 mi) away from Earth. It is 958 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 343 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 27 November 2012 at 17:05 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 11 December 2012 at 15:57 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before northern standstill

12 days since the last southern standstill on 15 November 2012 at 16:10 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.914° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠20.924° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 November 2012 at 14:33 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

14 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio 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