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 74% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 19 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 ∠17° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 30 December 2085 at 23:59.

Cold Moon before 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2086 after 24 days on 29 January 2086 at 17:49.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1951".

Lunation 1063 / 2016

The Moon is 19 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1063 of Meeus index or 2016 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.53 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 46 minutes and it is 1 hour and 43 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 2 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 7 hours and 1 minute shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠305°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠305° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠329.2°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 12:32 about 15 days since last perigee on 20 December 2085 at 14:38 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next perigee on 17 January 2086 at 08:10 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 405 066 km

This apogee Moon is 405 066 km (251 696 mi) away from Earth. It is 342 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 1 643 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after descending node

6 days after descending node on 29 December 2085 at 15:40 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 13 January 2086 at 03:23 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon after northern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 29 December 2085 at 07:22 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠23.313° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-23.281° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 January 2086 at 20:13 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

19 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 15 January 2086 at 11:24 in ♑ Capricorn 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