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

Waning Gibbous in Sagittarius

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 85% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 18 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 in ♐ Sagittarius

Moon is passing about ∠9° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.

3 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 3 days on 9 April 2009 at 14:56.

Pink Moon before 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2009 after 25 days on 9 May 2009 at 04:01.

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 ∠1784"

Lunar disc appears visually 7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1784" and ∠1913".

Lunation 114 / 1067

The Moon is 18 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 114 of Meeus index or 1067 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 17 minutes and it is 2 hours and 29 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 27 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 42 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠282.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠282.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠311.7°.

Moon before apogee

11 days since point of perigee on 2 April 2009 at 02:31 in ♋ Cancer 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 16 April 2009 at 09:15 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 401 819 km

The Moon is 401 819 km (249 679 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 2 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 232 km (251 178 mi).

Moon before ascending node

9 days after descending node on 4 April 2009 at 07:22 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 18 April 2009 at 05:19 in ♒ Aquarius.

Moon before southern standstill

12 days since the last northern standstill on 1 April 2009 at 02:50 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠26.780° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-26.665° at the point of next southern standstill on 14 April 2009 at 13:02 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

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

Syzygy in 11 days

In 11 days on 25 April 2009 at 03:23 in ♉ Taurus 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