Waning
Gibbous ♍ Virgo
Moon phase on 21 December 2005 Wednesday is Waning Gibbous, 20 days old Moon is in Virgo.
Share this page: twitter facebook linkedinWaning Gibbous is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 71% and getting smaller. The 20 days old Moon is in ♍ Virgo.
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Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 15 December 2005 at 16:16.
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 is passing about ∠5° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 9.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1769" and ∠1951".
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2006 after 23 days on 14 January 2006 at 09:48.
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.
The Moon is 20 days old. Earth's natural satellite is moving from the middle to the last part of current synodic month. This is lunation 73 of Meeus index or 1026 from Brown series.
Length of current 73 lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 11 minutes. It is 1 hour and 8 minutes longer than next lunation 74 length.
Length of current synodic month is 33 minutes shorter than the mean length of synodic month, but it is still 5 hours and 36 minutes longer, compared to 21st century shortest.
This lunation true anomaly is ∠306.3°. At the beginning of next synodic month true anomaly will be ∠329.9°. The length of upcoming synodic months will keep decreasing since the true anomaly gets closer to the value of New Moon at point of perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).
Moon is reaching point of apogee on this date at 02:49, this is 15 days after last perigee on 5 December 2005 at 04:32 in ♒ Aquarius. Lunar orbit is starting to get closer, while the Moon is moving inward the Earth for 11 days ahead, until it will get to the point of next perigee on 1 January 2006 at 22:50 in ♑ Capricorn.
This apogee Moon is 405 014 km (251 664 mi) away from Earth. It is 394 km farther than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 1 695 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
11 days after its ascending node on 10 December 2005 at 04:50 in ♈ Aries, the Moon is following the northern part of its orbit for the next 2 days, until it will cross the ecliptic from North to South in descending node on 24 December 2005 at 10:43 in ♎ Libra.
11 days after beginning of current draconic month in ♈ Aries, the Moon is moving from the beginning to the first part of it.
5 days after previous North standstill on 16 December 2005 at 07:14 in ♋ Cancer, when Moon has reached northern declination of ∠28.378°. Next 9 days the lunar orbit moves southward to face South declination of ∠-28.387° in the next southern standstill on 30 December 2005 at 13:57 in ♐ Sagittarius.
After 9 days on 31 December 2005 at 03:12 in ♑ Capricorn, the Moon will be in New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and this alignment forms next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy.