What is the Major Lunar Standstill?

Highest & Lowest Moons

In March 2025, we are experiencing the absolute peak of the Moon’s 18.6 year cycle – the highest and lowest Moons – and definitely worth looking out for.

7th – highest Moon
22nd – lowest Moon

Why does the Moon have an 18.6 year cycle?

It’s the combination of the Earth’s tilt, the Moon’s tilt and the Sun’s gravitational pull.

Let’s look at these in more detail

In part 1, we looked at the Earth’s tilt and how this creates our seasons throughout the year.
In part 2, we looked at the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across our sky.
In part 3, we looked at the Moon’s tilt and how this affects how we experience the Moon in our sky.

In this section, we’ll look at the Sun’s gravitational pull and how this causes extremes in the height of the Moon in our sky and creates the Moon’s 18.6 year cycle.

NOTE: Please don’t worry if you can’t follow all of the astronomy as you really don’t need to understand it to experience and marvel at the height of the Moon in our sky. Just follow as well as you can. To begin, we need to mention two definitions…

Celestial Equator: This is an imaginary line projecting the Earth’s equator out into space. It is fixed and constant so is used as a framework to measure in space. We’ve included the ecliptic so you can see the angle between the two. This angle is 23.4˚ and is caused by the Earth’s tilt.

First Point of Aries: This is an astronomical reference point and most people have never heard of it! So if this is the first time you’ve heard this reference, please don’t worry! It is where the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator and the Sun enters Aries at the spring equinox. Basically, it’s a reference point in the sky.

Lunar Standstill

As we’ve explained, the Moon’s tilt causes her to swing from high in our sky to low and back again over the course of a month. Each time the Moon reaches her highest or lowest in the sky, this point is called a lunar standstill.

What is a MAJOR Lunar Standstill?

If the Moon has a lunar standstill every 2 weeks, what is a MAJOR lunar standstill? To answer this question, we need to look at the Moon’s nodes and the Sun’s gravitational pull. This is the final piece of the puzzle…

 

What are the Moon’s nodes?

As the Moon orbits the Earth over a month and swings from above the ecliptic to below, the Moon crosses the plane of the ecliptic twice. These points of intersection are called the Moon’s nodes. Moving north, the intersection is called the ascending node or north node. Two weeks later, moving south, it is called the descending node or south node.

Over the Moon’s 18.6 year cycle, the gravitational pull of the Sun forces these nodes to slowly rotate westwards 19˚ per year. 

Moon’s 18.6 Year Cycle

So, let’s dive into why the Moon has an 18.6 year cycle. REMEMBER you don’t need to understand this bit too deeply…

Major Lunar Standstill

This lunar standstill occurs when the Moon is moving north and as she crosses the ecliptic, the ascending node is at the First Point of Aries.

The Moon’s orbit is at its furthest from the celestial equator – the maximum Earth’s tilt PLUS the Moon’s tilt. Notice the Moon’s orbit is ABOVE the ecliptic.

The Moon rises to her most extreme height in 18.6 years and, two weeks later, to her most extreme low. We can really notice the difference in the Moon’s height in our sky and the extremes in rising and setting points along our horizon.

 

Sun’s Gravitational Pull

The gravitational pull of the Sun forces the Moon’s nodes to slowly rotate westward 19˚per year.

Over the next 9.3 years (half the Moon’s cycle), the Moon’s nodes rotate 180˚ and are then in their opposite position. This gives us the Minor Lunar Standstill.

Minor Lunar Standstill

This lunar standstill occurs when the Moon is moving south and as she crosses the ecliptic, the descending node is at the First Point of Aries. 

The Moon’s orbit is at its closest to the celestial equator – the maximum Earth’s tilt MINUS the Moon’s tilt. Notice the Moon’s orbit is BELOW the ecliptic.

At the MINOR lunar standstill, we experience the least extreme range in the Moon’s height and we hardly notice the difference, neither really high nor really low…

The Lunar Cycle

In 18.6 years, the nodes of the lunar orbit make one complete revolution.

And that’s it… our conclusion

The Moon’s tilt causes her to swing above and below the ecliptic and the Sun’s gravitational pull forces the Moon’s orbit to rotate around the ecliptic. It takes 18.6 years to complete one cycle and for the Moon to return to the same place in the sky.

Journey Complete

We hope you now have a better understanding of the Moon’s 18.6 year cycle. There’s a lot of complicated astronomy so WELL DONE!!! It’s quite a journey. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t understood it all as these things take time. Hopefully, you’ve learnt something interesting which takes you on to the next level of understanding. We’ve certainly been on a massive learning curve. It’s been quite a journey for us as we’ve been learning the astronomy, breaking it down into simple terms and on top of that learning animation!!!

This is such an amazing opportunity to notice how the Moon’s orbit affects how we see the Moon in our night sky.

Look out for the Moon

You don’t need to understand astronomy to experience the height of the Moon. You can see the extremes when you look up at the sky. Every month, the Moon will swing from very high to very low.

Check your lunar diary or calendar to see when the Moon is in Gemini/Cancer as she’ll be high in the sky and Sagittarius/Capricorn when she’ll be low. Our Astro Moon Calendar 2025 shows the high and low Moons each month. Our Astro Moon Diary, Seasons & Cycles Moon Calendar & our Lunar Pocket Planner all show the ascending and descending Moons for every day.

March dates

This is the absolute peak of the Moon’s 18.6 year cycle – the highest and lowest Moons – and definitely worth looking out for.

7th – highest Moon
22nd – lowest Moon

Journey of exploration

We’re so happy that you’re joining us on a journey of exploration. We’ve been following the Moon’s cycle for years now and have been deepening our understanding of the astronomy. However, we’re really not experts and we’re always learning so if you have anything that you’d like to share or have any requests then please leave a comment.

Back in 2006, we travelled up to the Callanish stone circle in the Outer Hebrides to witness the lowest Full Moon in the lunar cycle. We’re now really excited to be preparing to make that journey once again this summer, a whole lunar cycle later…

Tina & Ceri

We’ve done a video which we hope will help