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

Waning Gibbous in Libra

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 69% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 20 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 is entering ♎ Libra

Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

5 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 9 January 2096 at 19:20.

Wolf Moon before 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2096 after 23 days on 8 February 2096 at 09:50.

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 ∠1780"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1780" and ∠1951".

Lunation 1187 / 2140

The Moon is 20 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 1187 of Meeus index or 2140 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.64 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 20 minutes and it is 2 hours and 36 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 hours and 36 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 27 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠255°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠255° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠291.7°.

Moon before apogee

9 days since point of perigee on 5 January 2096 at 18:18 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 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 17 January 2096 at 20:30 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 402 676 km

The Moon is 402 676 km (250 211 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 322 km (251 234 mi).

Moon before descending node

8 days after ascending node on 6 January 2096 at 23:04 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 21 January 2096 at 00:01 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 9 January 2096 at 02:58 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.638° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.665° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 January 2096 at 11:33 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

8 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 9 days

In 9 days on 25 January 2096 at 09:45 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