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

Waxing Gibbous in Gemini

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 86% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 ♊ Gemini

Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 3 days on 6 January 2006 at 18:57.

Wolf Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2006 after 3 days on 14 January 2006 at 09:48.

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 ∠1857"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1857" and ∠1951".

Lunation 74 / 1027

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 74 of Meeus index or 1027 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.46 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 3 minutes and it is 47 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 1 hour and 41 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 28 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠329.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠329.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠347.5°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 1 January 2006 at 22:50 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 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 17 January 2006 at 19:07 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 386 006 km

The Moon is 386 006 km (239 853 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 886 km (252 206 mi).

Moon after ascending node

4 days after ascending node on 6 January 2006 at 05:01 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 20 January 2006 at 12:06 in ♎ Libra.

Moon before northern standstill

10 days since the last southern standstill on 30 December 2005 at 13:57 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.387° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.410° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 January 2006 at 13:12 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

4 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 14 January 2006 at 09:48 in ♋ Cancer 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