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

Waxing Gibbous in Scorpio

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 87% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 ♏ Scorpio

Moon is leaving the last ∠1° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♐ Sagittarius later.

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 29 June 2009 at 11:28.

Buck Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2009 after 3 days on 7 July 2009 at 09:21.

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 ∠1805"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1805" and ∠1887".

Lunation 117 / 1070

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 117 of Meeus index or 1070 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.29 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 1 minute and it is 27 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2009. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 44 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 25 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠349.4°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠349.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠4.5°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 23 June 2009 at 10:39 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 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 7 July 2009 at 21:39 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 397 124 km

The Moon is 397 124 km (246 761 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 233 km (252 421 mi).

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 24 June 2009 at 17:24 in ♋ Cancer the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 5 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 8 July 2009 at 15:24 in ♑ Capricorn.

Moon before southern standstill

11 days since the last northern standstill on 22 June 2009 at 02:48 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠26.446° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-26.460° at the point of next southern standstill on 5 July 2009 at 07:34 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 3 days

In 3 days on 7 July 2009 at 09:21 in ♑ Capricorn 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