Full moon 29 or 30 days long. A full moon is often thought of as an event of a full night's duration. This is somewhat misleading because its phase seen from Earth continuously waxes or wanes (though much too slowly to notice in real time with the naked eye). Its maximum illumination occurs at the moment waxing has stopped. For any given location, about half of these maximum full moons may be visible, while the other half occurs during the day, when the full moon is below the horizon. Many almanacs list full moons not only by date, but also by their
Equinox zero. Its latitude will not be exactly zero, since Earth is not exactly in the plane of the ecliptic. Its declination will not be exactly zero either. (The ecliptic is defined by the barycenter of Earth and the Moon combined.) The modern definition of equinox is the instants when the Sun's apparent geocentric longitude is 0° (northward equinox) or 180° (southward equinox). See the adjacent diagram. Because of the precession of the Earth's axis, the position of the vernal point on the celestial sphere changes over time, and the equatorial and the ecliptic coordinate systems change accordingly. Thus when specifying