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

Waxing Gibbous in Aquarius

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 89% 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 27 August 2028 at 01:36.

Harvest Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2028 after 3 days on 3 September 2028 at 23:48.

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 ∠1802"

Lunar disc appears visually 5.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1802" and ∠1901".

Lunation 354 / 1307

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 354 of Meeus index or 1307 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.32 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 40 minutes and it is 53 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2028. 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 4 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 5 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠347.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠347.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠2.9°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 21 August 2028 at 04:10 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 4 September 2028 at 20:03 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 397 749 km

The Moon is 397 749 km (247 150 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 398 km (252 524 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 30 August 2028 at 20:39 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 14 September 2028 at 09:06 in ♋ Cancer.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 28 August 2028 at 06:28 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.819° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.693° at the point of next northern standstill on 12 September 2028 at 01:18 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 3 September 2028 at 23:48 in ♓ Pisces 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