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

Full Moon in Aries

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 100%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 16 October 2016 at 04:23 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is leaving the last ∠2° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♉ Taurus later.

It is Hunter Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Hunter of October 2016.

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1968"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1968" and ∠1925".

Lunation 207 / 1160

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 207 of Meeus index or 1160 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.73 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 27 minutes and it is 1 hour and 13 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 43 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 20 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠144.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠144.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠170.6°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 23:36 about 12 days since last apogee on 4 October 2016 at 11:02 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 31 October 2016 at 19:29 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 357 860 km

This perigee Moon is 357 860 km (222 364 mi) away from Earth. It is 4 648 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 12 496 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

3 days after descending node on 13 October 2016 at 09:43 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 26 October 2016 at 01:44 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 8 October 2016 at 06:03 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.546° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.619° at the point of next northern standstill on 20 October 2016 at 23:38 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

17 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo 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