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

Waxing Gibbous in Gemini

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 77% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 10 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 ♊ Gemini

Moon is passing about ∠20° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 2 February 2009 at 23:13.

Snow Moon after 4 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2009 after 4 days on 9 February 2009 at 14:49.

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 ∠1970"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.3% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1970" and ∠1946".

Lunation 112 / 1065

The Moon is 10 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 112 of Meeus index or 1065 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.74 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 40 minutes and it is 3 hours and 9 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 4 hours and 56 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 7 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠213.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠213.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠246.2°.

Moon before perigee

13 days since point of apogee on 23 January 2009 at 00:11 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 2 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 7 February 2009 at 20:08 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 363 776 km

The Moon is 363 776 km (226 040 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 2 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 361 487 km (224 618 mi).

Moon before descending node

9 days after ascending node on 26 January 2009 at 13:27 in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 8 February 2009 at 19:46 in ♌ Leo.

Moon at northern standstill

At 14:55 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠27.083°. This is the year's northernmost lunar standstill of 2009. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-27.057° at the point of next southern standstill in ♐ Sagittarius on 18 February 2009 at 21:09.

Draconic month

9 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♒ Aquarius the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 4 days

In 4 days on 9 February 2009 at 14:49 in ♌ Leo 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