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

Waning Gibbous in Virgo

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 85% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 18 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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠8° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 7 January 2069 at 13:43.

Wolf Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2069 after 25 days on 6 February 2069 at 05:29.

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 ∠1786"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1786" and ∠1951".

Lunation 853 / 1806

The Moon is 18 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 853 of Meeus index or 1806 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.58 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 13 hours and 52 minutes and it is 2 hours and 11 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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 1 hour and 8 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 55 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠279.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠279.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠310.8°.

Moon before perigee

24 days since point of apogee on 17 December 2068 at 15:04 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 14 January 2069 at 12:33 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 401 377 km

The Moon is 401 377 km (249 404 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 393 km (251 278 mi).

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 3 January 2069 at 11:40 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 17 January 2069 at 13:49 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 5 January 2069 at 11:24 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.637° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.561° at the point of next southern standstill on 19 January 2069 at 21:30 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

21 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 23 January 2069 at 03:36 in ♒ Aquarius 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