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

Waxing Gibbous in Scorpio

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 90% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 is entering ♏ Scorpio

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 25 May 2015 at 17:19.

Strawberry Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2015 after 3 days on 2 June 2015 at 16:19.

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 ∠1793"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1793" and ∠1893".

Lunation 190 / 1143

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 190 of Meeus index or 1143 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.41 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 52 minutes and it is 1 hour and 27 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 2 hours and 52 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 17 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠48.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠48.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠78.1°.

Moon after apogee

3 days since point of apogee on 26 May 2015 at 22:12 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 10 June 2015 at 04:39 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 399 780 km

The Moon is 399 780 km (248 412 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 713 km (229 729 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 28 May 2015 at 14:40 in ♎ Libra 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 10 June 2015 at 23:30 in ♈ Aries.

Moon before southern standstill

10 days since the last northern standstill on 20 May 2015 at 09:41 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.389° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.440° at the point of next southern standstill on 3 June 2015 at 21:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

1 day 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 3 days

In 3 days on 2 June 2015 at 16:19 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