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

Waning Gibbous in Taurus

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 16 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 ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 10 October 2003 at 07:27.

Hunter Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2003 after 28 days on 9 November 2003 at 01:14.

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 ∠1778"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1778" and ∠1922".

Lunation 46 / 999

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 46 of Meeus index or 999 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.4 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 41 minutes and it is 28 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2003. 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 3 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 6 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠325.5°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠325.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠344°.

Moon before apogee

13 days since point of perigee on 28 September 2003 at 05:59 in ♏ Scorpio 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 14 October 2003 at 02:27 in ♊ Gemini.

Distance to Moon 403 169 km

The Moon is 403 169 km (250 518 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 692 km (252 085 mi).

Moon before ascending node

12 days after descending node on 29 September 2003 at 10:34 in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 13 October 2003 at 03:40 in ♉ Taurus.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 2 October 2003 at 17:06 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.963° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.054° at the point of next northern standstill on 17 October 2003 at 03:41 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 14 days

In 14 days on 25 October 2003 at 12:50 in ♏ Scorpio 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