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

Waning Gibbous in Virgo

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 92% 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 14 January 2006 at 09:48.

Wolf Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2006 after 26 days on 13 February 2006 at 04:44.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1950".

Lunation 74 / 1027

The Moon is 17 days old and navigating from the middle to the last 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 at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 19:07 about 15 days since last perigee on 1 January 2006 at 22:50 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next perigee on 30 January 2006 at 07:47 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 405 886 km

This apogee Moon is 405 886 km (252 206 mi) away from Earth. It is 478 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 823 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 6 January 2006 at 05:01 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 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 after northern standstill

4 days since the last northern standstill on 12 January 2006 at 13:12 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.410° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 9 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.492° at the point of next southern standstill on 27 January 2006 at 00:14 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

11 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 12 days

In 12 days on 29 January 2006 at 14:15 in ♒ Aquarius 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