No, it does vary over the course of a year. If you plotted out the elevation of the full Moon at midnight each time it’s full for a year, you’d find that it’s highest closer to December 20, and lowest closer to June 20. That’s because the Moon is approximately in the ecliptic, so basically follows the same path as the Sun. Except the full Moon is on the opposite side as the Sun, so it’s lower in the summer, higher in the winter.
Aarggh. This is getting confusing. I might just set up a cheap digital camera (with UV and ‘polaroid’ filters) in a small dome on the roof to point at the sky through a fisheye lens and save an image to disk every hour, whilst dark, for a few months.
This should give me an idea of what is going on.
All I need is funding.
Hence my statement that “what varies is which phase the moon shows at which point in the cycle.”
All you need is this site. I don’t remember if you have to register, but I do remember not paying for it. This is well worth it the free registration if it’s required.
After you select your latitude and longitude, set the clock for your midnight (standard time), then highlight the days, and then click on the ‘+’ button to move forward one day at a time (’-’ button to go back one day at a time). If you click and hold down on either button and then move the mouse while holding down the button, the days scroll by faster to a point where you can see the moon traverse the sky every midnight, for every day and you will see the actual paths of the moon move northward towards the winter solstice, and southward towards the summer solstice. This will give you a definitive view of what you seek. Pretty cool, huh!
Upon further review, I noticed that Antechinus is in the southern Hemisphere, so your summer solstice is in December and the full moon is low in the sky to the north, and your winter solstice is in June and the full moon is at it’s highest in the sky (southernmost).
Does that help any?