Waning Gibbous Moon
Waning Gibbous MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Waning Gibbous in Virgo

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 98% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 16 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the evening and sets in the morning. It is visible to the southwest and it is high in the sky after midnight.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠14° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 14 February 2014 at 23:53.

Snow Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2014 after 28 days on 16 March 2014 at 17:09.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1798"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1798" and ∠1942".

Lunation 174 / 1127

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 174 of Meeus index or 1127 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.43 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 21 minutes and it is 24 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2014. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 23 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 46 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠8.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠8.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠25.1°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 12 February 2014 at 05:09 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 27 February 2014 at 19:52 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 398 635 km

The Moon is 398 635 km (247 700 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 360 439 km (223 966 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 5 February 2014 at 12:41 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 20 February 2014 at 03:28 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 9 February 2014 at 15:21 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.306° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-19.175° at the point of next southern standstill on 24 February 2014 at 01:24 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

23 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 1 March 2014 at 08:00 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy alignment.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

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