Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 98% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 13 days young.
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.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♌ Leo later.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 5 days on 24 January 2018 at 22:20.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2018 after 1 day on 31 January 2018 at 13:27.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 1.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1969" and ∠1948".
The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 223 of Meeus index or 1176 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 18 hours and 48 minutes and it is 2 hours and 42 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2018. 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 7 hours and 3 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 59 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠198.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠227.1°.
Moon is at perigee at 09:54 about 15 days since last apogee on 15 January 2018 at 02:10 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next apogee on 11 February 2018 at 14:16 in ♐ Sagittarius.
This perigee Moon is 358 995 km (223 069 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 513 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 11 361 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
11 days after descending node on 18 January 2018 at 14:28 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 31 January 2018 at 18:46 in ♌ Leo.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 29 January 2018 at 11:32 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.027° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.026° at the point of next southern standstill on 11 February 2018 at 23:21 in ♑ Capricorn.
26 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 1 day on 31 January 2018 at 13:27 in ♌ Leo 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.
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
