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

Waxing Gibbous in Aquarius

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 96% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 13 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing about ∠23° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 2 September 2014 at 11:11.

Harvest Moon after 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2014 after 1 day on 9 September 2014 at 01:38.

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 ∠1973"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1904".

Lunation 181 / 1134

The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 181 of Meeus index or 1134 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.67 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 1 minute and it is 18 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2014. 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 3 hours and 17 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 46 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠192.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠192.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠218.3°.

Moon before perigee

14 days since point of apogee on 24 August 2014 at 06:09 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 8 September 2014 at 03:29 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 363 313 km

The Moon is 363 313 km (225 752 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 388 km (222 692 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 29 August 2014 at 13:14 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 11 September 2014 at 07:32 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 3 September 2014 at 13:10 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.641° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.579° at the point of next northern standstill on 16 September 2014 at 05:15 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

8 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 1 day

In 1 day on 9 September 2014 at 01:38 in ♓ Pisces 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