This is the first full moon after the December solstice. In North America, we commonly call this full moon the “Old Moon” or “Moon After Yule.”
Can you tell me the full moon names?
The photograph above is by sky artist Dan Bush, by the way. Be sure to check out his moon page.
Look for tonight’s full moon to rise in the east around sunset today (Sunday, January 8). Like every full moon, it’ll climb highest in the sky around midnight and will set in the west tomorrow around sunrise. For general reference, we can say the moon is full all night tonight.
Astronomically speaking, though, the moon is full for only an instant. That instant occurs when the moon is most opposite the sun for the month. That happens tomorrow (January 9) at 7:30 Universal Time. For the U.S. time zones, that places the full moon at 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time, 1:30 a.m. Central Time, 12:30 a.m. Mountain Time, and 11:30 p.m. (on January 8) Pacific Time.
In North and South America, the moon turns full during the nighttime hours between sunset and sunrise. At this full moon instant, the moon has to be above our horizon, because the sun is shining below it. In other words, at the instant of full moon, the moon shines above the horizon for the nighttime side of the world and below the horizon for the daytime side.
The day and nighttime sides of Earth at instant of full moon (2012 January 9 at 7:30 Universal Time)
Image credit: Earth and Moon Viewer
On the daytime side of the world – like in Africa, most of Asia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand – the moon must be below the horizon because the sun is above it. For the Rocky Mountain region in the United States, the moon turns precisely full at midnight, so the full moon shines high overhead while the sun lies underfoot.
Watch the January full moon tonight, as it beams from dusk until dawn!
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San Diego 8:30 pm there is a spectacular star slightly to the southwest of straight up. it appears to have “splinters” or “fingers” please educate me on this.
I just saw a fire falling from the sky, what was it?
Will be out there at midnight with the bino’s!
I think around 745pm the moon was HUUGE!!! then at 11pm it got smaller, so bright, it lit up the whole city, and made the mountains visible at night…
Very informative as usual Bruce, thanks! I love Earthsky!
Now people, If you think a full Moon is impressive to see, and you have a vivid imagination like me, then try this in Stellarium –this is JUST ONE example, there are other views from other satellites/planets equally as cool! This one is to see Mars super-close and surreal from its satellite Phobos:
Looking EAST with a 60-degree field of view –the closest to a real naked-eye horizon view–, change your location to these coordinates:
Latitude 0 degrees north
Longitude 25 degrees west
And then change the planet to: Phobos
From there you can experiment and have fun! :Increase/decrease time speed, to see it rotate, and partially occult the Sun in the daytime and the center of the Milky Way in the night. Change the longitude to move Mars higher or lower in the horizon so as to not to occult the Milky Way so badly lol … I mean the thing is to IMAGINE how crazy it would be if you lived there and you saw that huge thing fixed in the same position of the sky, every day? We are very lucky this doesn’t happen on Earth and we get virtually an unobstructed sky every clear night!
I love EarthSky I make it a daily visit to check out what will be visible in the sky that night. Thanks for such an informative site.
To Ron Hernandez
I aLso saw an object falling from the sky on 1/8/2012
[...] opposite the sun – tonight. For us in North America, that happened during the nighttime hours last night. Tonight’s moon is actually a waning gibbous moon. Although we draw in the stick figure of the [...]
On the way to work, the morning of January 9 at approx. 7:30am the moon was the LARGEST I have EVER seen!!!! I was completely BLOWN away at its size in the Western sky…AMAZING!!! God’s awesome wonder and creation.
Can anyone tell me why the moon appeared so LARGELY in the sky at that hour??
Thanks