The Faithful Witness in the Sky

Moon Phases

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This is a Java Applet ®
To view this animation of the phases of the moon and various lunar months, your browser must be Java ® enabled. If your computer does not have Java ® capabilities, a Java ® plugin download window may pop up. Otherwise, you can download the latest version of Java ® here: Java ® Plugin

The perspective is as though the viewer is looking down on the North Pole and moving along with the Earth as it orbits the sun. Therefore, the Earth appears stationary and the sun seems to be orbiting.

The sidereal month is indicated as the moon returns to the index point each cycle. The synodic month is indicated from new moon to new moon. The anomalistic month occurs as the moon travels from perigee to perigee. The draconic month is marked by the moon's intersection with the Earth's orbital plane.