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

Waxing Gibbous in Aries

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 93% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 12 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 ♈ Aries

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

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 22 October 2023 at 03:29.

Hunter Moon after 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2023 after 2 days on 28 October 2023 at 20:24.

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 ∠1960"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1960" and ∠1930".

Lunation 294 / 1247

The Moon is 12 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 294 of Meeus index or 1247 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 32 minutes and it is 1 hour and 27 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 longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 48 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 15 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠232.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠232.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠269.5°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 02:53 about 15 days since last apogee on 10 October 2023 at 03:41 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next apogee on 6 November 2023 at 21:49 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 364 873 km

This perigee Moon is 364 873 km (226 722 mi) away from Earth. It is 2 365 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 5 483 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 15 October 2023 at 01:11 in ♎ Libra 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 28 October 2023 at 03:14 in ♈ Aries.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 20 October 2023 at 09:19 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.305° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.288° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 November 2023 at 05:12 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 28 October 2023 at 20:24 in ♈ Aries 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