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 82% 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 ♒ Aquarius

Moon is passing about ∠10° of ♒ Aquarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 3 days on 19 September 2053 at 21:29.

Harvest Moon after 4 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2053 after 4 days on 27 September 2053 at 21:50.

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 ∠1775"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1775" and ∠1913".

Lunation 664 / 1617

The Moon is 10 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 664 of Meeus index or 1617 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 18 minutes and it is 2 hours and 44 minutes shorter 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 1 hour and 26 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 43 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠43.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠43.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠71.2°.

Moon after apogee

2 days since point of apogee on 21 September 2053 at 11:30 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 12 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 6 October 2053 at 10:09 in ♌ Leo.

Distance to Moon 403 878 km

The Moon is 403 878 km (250 958 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 12 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 576 km (229 644 mi).

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 12 September 2053 at 03:56 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 26 September 2053 at 11:14 in ♓ Pisces.

Moon after southern standstill

3 days since the last southern standstill on 20 September 2053 at 10:22 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-18.328° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠18.380° at the point of next northern standstill on 4 October 2053 at 08:58 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♍ Virgo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 27 September 2053 at 21:50 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