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 88% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 leaving the last ∠1° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♊ Gemini later.

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 26 December 2082 at 23:37.

Wolf Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2083 after 3 days on 4 January 2083 at 02:32.

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 ∠1773"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1773" and ∠1951".

Lunation 1026 / 1979

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1026 of Meeus index or 1979 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.53 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 39 minutes and it is 1 hour and 46 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 5 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 6 hours and 4 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠31°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠31° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠55.2°.

Moon after apogee

1 day since point of apogee on 29 December 2082 at 13:39 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 14 January 2083 at 11:19 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 404 201 km

The Moon is 404 201 km (251 159 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 13 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 367 634 km (228 437 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 23 December 2082 at 05:41 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 6 January 2083 at 17:32 in ♌ Leo.

Moon before northern standstill

12 days since the last southern standstill on 19 December 2082 at 08:21 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.412° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠27.424° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 January 2083 at 11:49 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

8 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 4 January 2083 at 02:32 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