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

Waxing Gibbous in Capricorn

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 71% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

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.

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 ♑ Capricorn

Moon is passing about ∠25° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 1 day on 21 September 2004 at 15:54.

Harvest Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2004 after 5 days on 28 September 2004 at 13:09.

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 ∠1967"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1967" and ∠1913".

Lunation 58 / 1011

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 58 of Meeus index or 1011 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.51 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 19 minutes and it is 40 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 25 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 44 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠269.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠269.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠302.8°.

Moon after perigee

1 day since point of perigee on 22 September 2004 at 21:12 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 5 October 2004 at 22:10 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 364 454 km

The Moon is 364 454 km (226 461 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 12 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 328 km (251 238 mi).

Moon after descending node

5 days after descending node on 17 September 2004 at 14:51 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 30 September 2004 at 13:30 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

1 day since the last southern standstill on 22 September 2004 at 02:36 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.958° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.020° at the point of next northern standstill on 5 October 2004 at 17:37 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

20 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 5 days

In 5 days on 28 September 2004 at 13:09 in ♓ Pisces 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.

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