When will the moon's perigee point correspond to its new phase?

Hello,

As you may know, perigee is the place in the orbit
of an Earth satellite when it is closest to the
center of the Earth. This event will occur once
in every lunar period, but because the slightly
elliptical lunar orbit is precessing, the time
of perigee will change a bit each month. You
asked for a time when a new moon would coincide
with perigee.
To find this, I looked in Guy Ottewell's Astronomical
Calendar - any good astronomical almanac should have
this information, too. I see the following dates
during 1997:
Jan 9, Feb7, Mar9
By Apr 7 the new moon phase was moving out of synch
with perigee. Beginning in August, the full moon is
synchronized with perigee for a few months - it will
be a few months into 1998 before new moon is back in
synch with perigee, so around Feb or Mar of 1998.

Hope that helps! If you're interested in getting
an almanac, the Ottewell one is really nice. I know
it's available through the Astronomical Society of
the Pacific's catalog in October/November. Their
web site is www.aspsky.org.

Best wishes,
Debra Fischer

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