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

Waxing Gibbous in Virgo

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 67% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠12° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 1 day on 12 May 2019 at 01:12.

Flower Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2019 after 5 days on 18 May 2019 at 21:11.

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 ∠1971"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.7% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1971" and ∠1899".

Lunation 239 / 1192

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 239 of Meeus index or 1192 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 16 minutes and it is 2 hours and 2 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 28 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 41 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠263°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠263° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠296.1°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 21:53 about 15 days since last apogee on 28 April 2019 at 18:20 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 26 May 2019 at 13:27 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 369 017 km

This perigee Moon is 369 017 km (229 297 mi) away from Earth. It is 6 509 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 1 339 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 9 May 2019 at 18:50 in ♋ Cancer the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 22 May 2019 at 19:12 in ♑ Capricorn.

Moon after northern standstill

4 days since the last northern standstill on 9 May 2019 at 05:46 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠22.243° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-22.313° at the point of next southern standstill on 22 May 2019 at 06:41 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 18 May 2019 at 21:11 in ♏ Scorpio 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