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 76% 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠20° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 5 May 2052 at 19:05.

Flower Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2052 after 5 days on 13 May 2052 at 19:00.

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 ∠1823"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1823" and ∠1900".

Lunation 647 / 1600

The Moon is 10 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 647 of Meeus index or 1600 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.31 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 29 minutes and it is 29 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 15 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 54 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠352.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠352.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠7.2°.

Moon before apogee

8 days since point of perigee on 29 April 2052 at 14:35 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 13 May 2052 at 20:41 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 393 100 km

The Moon is 393 100 km (244 261 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 5 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 342 km (252 489 mi).

Moon before ascending node

11 days after descending node on 27 April 2052 at 10:56 in ♈ Aries 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 10 May 2052 at 10:36 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 2 May 2052 at 05:36 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.384° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.443° at the point of next southern standstill on 16 May 2052 at 13:00 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 13 May 2052 at 19:00 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