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

Waning Gibbous in Aries

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 97% 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠16° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 18 September 2005 at 02:01.

Harvest Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2005 after 28 days on 17 October 2005 at 12:14.

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 ∠1922"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.6% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1922" and ∠1910".

Lunation 70 / 1023

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 70 of Meeus index or 1023 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 42 minutes and it is 45 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2005. 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 58 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 5 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠205.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠205.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠236.1°.

Moon after perigee

2 days since point of perigee on 16 September 2005 at 13:58 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 28 September 2005 at 15:20 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 372 931 km

The Moon is 372 931 km (231 729 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 307 km (251 846 mi).

Moon in ascending node

Moon is in ascending node in ♈ Aries at 08:09 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 3 October 2005 at 16:51 in ♎ Libra.

Moon before northern standstill

7 days since the last southern standstill on 12 September 2005 at 10:54 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.556° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.594° at the point of next northern standstill on 25 September 2005 at 06:42 in ♋ Cancer.

New draconic month

At 08:09 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.

Syzygy in 13 days

In 13 days on 3 October 2005 at 10:28 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