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

Waning Gibbous in Taurus

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 88% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 18 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 in ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 4 October 2009 at 06:10.

Hunter Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2009 after 26 days on 2 November 2009 at 19:14.

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 ∠1911"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1911" and ∠1920".

Lunation 120 / 1073

The Moon is 18 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 120 of Meeus index or 1073 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.45 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 49 minutes and it is 2 hours and 52 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 55 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 14 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠39.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠39.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠65.2°.

Moon before perigee

9 days since point of apogee on 28 September 2009 at 03:33 in ♑ Capricorn 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 13 October 2009 at 12:28 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 375 043 km

The Moon is 375 043 km (233 041 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 068 km (229 328 mi).

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 28 September 2009 at 06:52 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 11 October 2009 at 23:01 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon before northern standstill

12 days since the last southern standstill on 25 September 2009 at 04:03 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.188° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠26.057° at the point of next northern standstill on 9 October 2009 at 09:49 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 10 days

In 10 days on 18 October 2009 at 05:33 in ♎ Libra 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