Apogee
The point on the moon's elliptical orbit around the earth at which its distance to the earth is greatest.
The nearest point is the perigee.
The apogee is also referred to as Lilith.
Astronomy
There are considerable problems in exactly calculating these apsides (Dieter Koch): "Although Kepler ellipses are a good means to describe planetary orbits, they fail with the orbit of the moon, which is strongly perturbed by the gravitational pull of the sun. This solar perturbation results in gigantic monthly oscillations in the ephemeris of the osculating apsides (the amplitude is 30 degrees). It turns out that the motions of the lunar perigee and apogee form curves of different quality and the two points are usually not in opposition to each other. They are more or less opposite points only at times when the sun is in conjunction with one of them or at an angle of 90° from them".
See also
Weblinks
- Wikipedia: Apsis
- Symbolism of the lunar apogee - black moon (Lilith) (Juan Revilla's Blog, 2023)