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

Waxing Gibbous in Aries

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 67% 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 ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 1 day on 5 December 2008 at 21:26.

Cold Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2008 after 5 days on 12 December 2008 at 16:37.

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 ∠1887"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1887" and ∠1948".

Lunation 110 / 1063

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 110 of Meeus index or 1063 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.81 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 28 minutes and it is 5 minutes shorter 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 19 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠161.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠161.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠186.6°.

Moon before perigee

7 days since point of apogee on 29 November 2008 at 16:55 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 12 December 2008 at 21:37 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 379 905 km

The Moon is 379 905 km (236 062 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 568 km (221 561 mi).

Moon after ascending node

4 days after ascending node on 3 December 2008 at 04:47 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 15 December 2008 at 23:02 in ♌ Leo.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 29 November 2008 at 02:41 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.025° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.024° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 December 2008 at 18:39 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 12 December 2008 at 16:37 in ♊ Gemini 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