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

Waxing Gibbous in Sagittarius

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 ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠7° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 2 August 2006 at 08:46.

Sturgeon Moon after 4 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2006 after 4 days on 9 August 2006 at 10:54.

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 ∠1846"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1846" and ∠1891".

Lunation 81 / 1034

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 81 of Meeus index or 1034 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.61 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 39 minutes and it is 1 hour and 56 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 1 hour and 55 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 8 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠131.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠131.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠158.8°.

Moon after apogee

5 days since point of apogee on 29 July 2006 at 13:02 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 10 August 2006 at 18:27 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 388 386 km

The Moon is 388 386 km (241 332 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 755 km (223 541 mi).

Moon after descending node

5 days after descending node on 29 July 2006 at 16:58 in ♍ Virgo 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 12 August 2006 at 01:31 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon before southern standstill

12 days since the last northern standstill on 22 July 2006 at 14:34 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.515° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-28.594° at the point of next southern standstill on 6 August 2006 at 04:11 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

19 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 9 August 2006 at 10:54 in ♒ Aquarius 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