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

Waxing Gibbous in Libra

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 72% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 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 ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 27 May 2004 at 07:57.

Strawberry Moon after 4 days

Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2004 after 4 days on 3 June 2004 at 04:20.

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 ∠1892"

Lunar disc appears visually 0% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1892" and ∠1893".

Lunation 54 / 1007

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 54 of Meeus index or 1007 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 35 minutes and it is 38 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2004. 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 51 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 12 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠158.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠158.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠181.6°.

Moon before perigee

7 days since point of apogee on 21 May 2004 at 12:02 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 3 June 2004 at 13:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 378 756 km

The Moon is 378 756 km (235 348 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 249 km (221 984 mi).

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 17 May 2004 at 18:17 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 1 June 2004 at 01:20 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before southern standstill

7 days since the last northern standstill on 22 May 2004 at 10:05 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠27.595° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠-27.569° at the point of next southern standstill on 4 June 2004 at 17:29 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 3 June 2004 at 04:20 in ♐ Sagittarius 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