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

Waning Gibbous in Aries

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 81% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 19 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 is entering ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 4 days on 27 July 2018 at 20:20.

Buck Moon before 4 days

Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2018 after 24 days on 26 August 2018 at 11:56.

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 ∠1820"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1820" and ∠1891".

Lunation 229 / 1182

The Moon is 19 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 229 of Meeus index or 1182 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.3 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 10 minutes and it is 54 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 5 hours and 34 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 35 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠356°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠356° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠11.2°.

Moon after apogee

5 days since point of apogee on 27 July 2018 at 05:44 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 10 August 2018 at 18:05 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 393 851 km

The Moon is 393 851 km (244 728 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 083 km (222 502 mi).

Moon after descending node

4 days after descending node on 27 July 2018 at 22:40 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 10 August 2018 at 13:40 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 25 July 2018 at 20:55 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-20.755° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠20.757° at the point of next northern standstill on 8 August 2018 at 22:33 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

18 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.

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 11 August 2018 at 09:58 in ♌ Leo 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