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

Waning Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 96% 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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠9° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 4 May 2004 at 20:33.

Flower Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2004 after 27 days on 3 June 2004 at 04:20.

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 ∠1971"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1971" and ∠1901".

Lunation 53 / 1006

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 53 of Meeus index or 1006 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 31 minutes and it is 4 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 47 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 16 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠129.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠129.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠158.3°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 04:29 about 12 days since last apogee on 24 April 2004 at 00:26 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next apogee on 21 May 2004 at 12:02 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 359 812 km

This perigee Moon is 359 812 km (223 577 mi) away from Earth. It is 2 696 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 10 544 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

1 day after descending node on 4 May 2004 at 15:00 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 17 May 2004 at 18:17 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before southern standstill

11 days since the last northern standstill on 25 April 2004 at 03:32 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.628° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-27.623° at the point of next southern standstill on 8 May 2004 at 08:08 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

16 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 19 May 2004 at 04:52 in ♉ Taurus 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