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

Waning Gibbous in Aquarius

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 72% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 20 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 17 May 2011 at 11:09.

Flower Moon before 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2011 after 24 days on 15 June 2011 at 20:13.

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 ∠1822"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1822" and ∠1895".

Lunation 140 / 1093

The Moon is 20 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 140 of Meeus index or 1093 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.59 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 12 minutes and it is 2 hours and 21 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 28 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 35 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠216.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠216.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠248.4°.

Moon before apogee

7 days since point of perigee on 15 May 2011 at 11:18 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 27 May 2011 at 09:58 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 393 312 km

The Moon is 393 312 km (244 393 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 006 km (251 659 mi).

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 19 May 2011 at 09:03 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 2 June 2011 at 20:21 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 18 May 2011 at 23:26 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-23.403° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠23.393° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 June 2011 at 09:54 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

3 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 10 days

In 10 days on 1 June 2011 at 21:03 in ♊ Gemini 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