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

Waning Gibbous in Taurus

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 93% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 17 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 is entering ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 2 days on 21 September 2002 at 13:59.

Harvest Moon before 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2002 after 26 days on 21 October 2002 at 07:20.

Neap tide

There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1773"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1773" and ∠1913".

Lunation 33 / 986

The Moon is 17 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 33 of Meeus index or 986 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.34 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 7 minutes and it is 1 hour and 10 minutes shorter 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 37 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 32 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠343.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠343.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠358.6°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 23 September 2002 at 03:26 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 6 October 2002 at 13:17 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 404 332 km

The Moon is 404 332 km (251 240 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 920 km (221 780 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 13 September 2002 at 03:39 in ♐ Sagittarius 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 27 September 2002 at 16:06 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

9 days since the last southern standstill on 15 September 2002 at 05:34 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.377° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.530° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 September 2002 at 00:04 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 6 October 2002 at 11:17 in ♎ Libra 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