Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 96% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 13 days young.
The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 14 August 2013 at 10:56.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2013 after 1 day on 21 August 2013 at 01:45.
There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.
Lunar disc appears visually 3.4% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1962" and ∠1896".
The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 168 of Meeus index or 1121 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 45 minutes and it is 47 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).
The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 1 minute longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 2 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠216.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠249.2°.
Moon is at perigee at 01:26 about 15 days since last apogee on 3 August 2013 at 08:53 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next apogee on 30 August 2013 at 23:46 in ♋ Cancer.
This perigee Moon is 362 265 km (225 101 mi) away from Earth. It is 243 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 8 091 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
5 days after ascending node on 13 August 2013 at 16:20 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 26 August 2013 at 08:19 in ♉ Taurus.
2 days since the last southern standstill on 16 August 2013 at 12:06 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-19.906° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠19.801° at the point of next northern standstill on 29 August 2013 at 17:03 in ♊ Gemini.
5 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
In 1 day on 21 August 2013 at 01:45 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.
Parts of this Lunar Calendar are based on Planetary Ephemeris Data Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.Astropixels.com
Moon phase image credit to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov