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The Moon's elongation is its angular distance east of the Sun at any time. At new moon, it is zero and the Moon is said to be in conjunction. At full moon, the elongation is 180° and it is said to be in opposition. In both cases, the Moon is in syzygy, that is, the Sun, Moon and Earth are nearly aligned.
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, orbiting at an average distance of 384 399 km (238,854 mi; 30 Earths across).It faces Earth always with the same side.This is a result of Earth's gravitational pull having synchronized the Moon's rotation period with its orbital period (lunar month) of 29.5 Earth days.
A waxing gibbous Moon, rising over mountains with coniferous trees. The Moon's position relative to Earth and the Sun determines the moonrise and moonset time. For example, a last quarter rises at midnight and sets at noon. [5] A waning gibbous is best seen from late night to early morning. [6]
Every 18.6 years, the angle between the Moon's orbit and Earth's equator reaches a maximum of 28°36′, the sum of Earth's equatorial tilt (23°27′) and the Moon's orbital inclination (5°09′) to the ecliptic. This is called major lunar standstill. Around this time, the Moon's declination will vary from −28°36′ to +28°36 ...
Looking at the diagram, note that when the Moon's line of nodes (N1 & N2) rotates a little more than shown, and aligns with Earth's equator, the Moon's orbit will reach its steepest angle with the Earth's equator, and 9.3 years later it will be the shallowest: the 5.14° declination (tilt) of the Moon's orbit either adds to (major standstill ...
Since the Moon's axial tilt is only 1.5° with respect to the ecliptic (the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun), this effect is small. Once every 18.6 years, [ 1 ] the lunar north pole describes a small circle around a point in the constellation Draco , while correspondingly, the lunar south pole describes a small circle around a point in ...
Note that the Moon is nearly invisible from the Earth at New Moon phase except during a solar eclipse. The low angle of incidence of arriving sunlight tends to pick out features by the sharp shadows they cast, thus the area near the terminator is usually the most favorable for viewing or photographing lunar features through a telescope. The ...
For some objects, such as the Moon (see lunar phases), Venus and Mercury the phase angle (as seen from the Earth) covers the full 0–180° range. The superior planets cover shorter ranges. For example, for Mars the maximum phase angle is about 45°. For Jupiter, the maximum is 11.1° and for Saturn 6°. [1]