Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 98% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 13 days young.
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.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠25° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 6 days on 28 July 2009 at 22:00.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2009 after 1 day on 6 August 2009 at 00:55.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 6.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1891".
The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 118 of Meeus index or 1071 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 27 minutes and it is 1 hour and 16 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 17 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 52 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠4.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠20.3°.
Moon is at apogee at 00:42 about 13 days since last perigee on 21 July 2009 at 20:16 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 19 August 2009 at 04:53 in ♌ Leo.
This apogee Moon is 406 027 km (252 293 mi) away from Earth. It is 619 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 682 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♑ Capricorn at 21:42 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 18 August 2009 at 14:06 in ♋ Cancer.
2 days since the last southern standstill on 1 August 2009 at 13:28 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-26.478° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠26.442° at the point of next northern standstill on 15 August 2009 at 21:54 in ♊ Gemini.
At 21:42 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 1 day on 6 August 2009 at 00:55 in ♒ Aquarius 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.
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