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

Waning Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 98% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 16 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 in ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠21° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 23 May 2043 at 23:37.

Flower Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2043 after 28 days on 22 June 2043 at 14:20.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1782"

Lunar disc appears visually 6.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1782" and ∠1894".

Lunation 536 / 1489

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 536 of Meeus index or 1489 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.3 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 14 minutes and it is 2 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2043. 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 30 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 39 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠0.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠0.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠15.9°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 22 May 2043 at 14:46 in ♏ Scorpio the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 6 June 2043 at 11:59 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 402 157 km

The Moon is 402 157 km (249 889 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 11 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 682 km (222 875 mi).

Moon after descending node

6 days after descending node on 19 May 2043 at 08:03 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 2 June 2043 at 17:02 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon before southern standstill

13 days since the last northern standstill on 12 May 2043 at 00:03 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.531° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-28.459° at the point of next southern standstill on 26 May 2043 at 08:52 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

19 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 12 days

In 12 days on 7 June 2043 at 10:35 in ♊ Gemini 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