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

Waxing Gibbous in Taurus

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 79% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 10 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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing about ∠15° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 27 December 2044 at 14:00.

Wolf Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2045 after 3 days on 3 January 2045 at 10:20.

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 ∠1909"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1909" and ∠1951".

Lunation 556 / 1509

The Moon is 10 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 556 of Meeus index or 1509 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.81 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 32 minutes and it is 6 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2044. 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 6 hours and 48 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 15 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠156.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠156.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠182.1°.

Moon before perigee

8 days since point of apogee on 21 December 2044 at 20:29 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 3 January 2045 at 19:25 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 375 558 km

The Moon is 375 558 km (233 361 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 356 773 km (221 688 mi).

Moon after ascending node

5 days after ascending node on 24 December 2044 at 21:19 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 6 January 2045 at 16:49 in ♌ Leo.

Moon before northern standstill

11 days since the last southern standstill on 19 December 2044 at 04:38 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.031° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.069° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 January 2045 at 06:32 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

5 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 3 January 2045 at 10:20 in ♋ Cancer 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