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

Waxing Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waxing Gibbous on . Illuminated surface of the Moon is 96% and growing larger. Lunar cycle is 13 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

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.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon is entering ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 10 June 2008 at 15:04.

Strawberry Moon after 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2008 after 2 days on 18 June 2008 at 17:30.

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 6.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1889".

Lunation 104 / 1057

The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 104 of Meeus index or 1057 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.29 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 6 hours and 56 minutes and it is 58 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2008. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 48 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 21 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠4.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠4.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠20.1°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 17:33 about 13 days since last perigee on 3 June 2008 at 13:08 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 15 days until point of next perigee on 1 July 2008 at 21:22 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 406 229 km

This apogee Moon is 406 229 km (252 419 mi) away from Earth. It is 821 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 480 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 8 June 2008 at 09:15 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 22 June 2008 at 23:17 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon before southern standstill

12 days since the last northern standstill on 4 June 2008 at 11:38 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.527° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-27.510° at the point of next southern standstill on 18 June 2008 at 09:08 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

20 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 18 June 2008 at 17:30 in ♐ Sagittarius 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